The Winter's Walk
Behold, my fair, where'er we rove,What dreary prospects round us rise;The naked hill, the leafless grove,The hoary ground, the frowning skies!Nor only through the wasted plain,Stern winter! is thy force confess'd;Still wider spreads thy horrid reign,I feel thy pow'r usurp my breast.Enliv'ning hope, and fond desire,Resign the heart to spleen and care;Scarce frighted love maintains her fire,And rapture saddens to despair.In groundless hope, and causeless fear,Unhappy man! behold thy doom;Still changing with the changeful year,The slave of sunshine and of gloom.Tir'd with vain joys, and false alarms,With mental and corporeal strife,Snatch me, my Stella, to thy arms,And screen me from the ills of life.
Words in this poem
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
- hoary a.
- White or whitish."The hoary willows."
- horrid a.
- Rough; rugged; bristling. [L. horridus. See Horror, and cf. Ordure.]
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
- groundless a.
- Without ground or foundation; wanting cause or reason for support; not authorized; false; as, groundless fear; a groundless report or assertion. [AS. grundleás bottomless.]
- causeless a.
- 1. Self-originating; uncreated.
- changeful a.
- Full of change; mutable; inconstant; fickle; uncertain.
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Winter's Walk is in the public domain. This text is taken from Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 (The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes, 1825), Project Gutenberg ebook #10835; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Johnson, The Winter's Walk, in Poems (1825), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10835, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-poems/the-winter-s-walk.html, id L27138.
Form and metre
The Winter's Walk is 20 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGHGHIJIJ. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCDEFEFGHGHIJIJ roveA · riseB · groveA · skiesB · plainC · confess'dD · reignC · breastD · desireE · careF · fireE · despairF · fearG · doomH · yearG · gloomH · alarmsI · strifeJ · armsI · lifeJ
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Behold, my fair, where'er we rove, | 9 | ˘/··˘˘/·· |
| What dreary prospects round us rise; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The naked hill, the leafless grove, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The hoary ground, the frowning skies! | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Nor only through the wasted plain, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Stern winter! is thy force confess'd; | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Still wider spreads thy horrid reign, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I feel thy pow'r usurp my breast. | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Enliv'ning hope, and fond desire, | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| Resign the heart to spleen and care; | 8 | ˘/······ |
| Scarce frighted love maintains her fire, | 9 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘ |
| And rapture saddens to despair. | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| In groundless hope, and causeless fear, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Unhappy man! behold thy doom; | 8 | ˘/˘·˘/·· |
| Still changing with the changeful year, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The slave of sunshine and of gloom. | 8 | ···/···· |
| Tir'd with vain joys, and false alarms, | 8 | /·····˘/ |
| With mental and corporeal strife, | 9 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘· |
| Snatch me, my Stella, to thy arms, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And screen me from the ills of life. | 8 | ········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.