Easter
The air is like a butterflyWith frail blue wings.The happy earth looks at the skyAnd sings.
About this text
Easter is in the public domain. This text is taken from Trees, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #263; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Joyce Kilmer, Easter, in Trees and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #263, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kilmer-trees/easter.html, id L12911.
Form and metre
Easter is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 5.5 syllables.
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 ABAB butterflyA · wingsB · skyA · singsB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The air is like a butterfly | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With frail blue wings. | 4 | ···· |
| The happy earth looks at the sky | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And sings. | 2 | ·· |
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.