Forest Moods
There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods,In the heart of the listening solitudes,Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few,And all the notes of their throats are true.
The thrush from the innermost ash takes onA tender dream of the treasured and gone;But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheerOf the might and light of the present and here.
There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods,In the heart of the sensitive solitudes,The roseate bell and the lily are there,And every leaf of their sheaf is fair.
Careless and bold, without dream of woe,The trilliums scatter their flags snow;But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face,Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race.
Words in this poem
- roseate a.
- Full of roses; rosy; as, roseate bowers. [Cf. L. roseus, rosatus, prepared from roses. See Roseal, Rose.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Forest Moods is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lyrics of Earth, Project Gutenberg ebook #12664; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Archibald Lampman, Forest Moods, in Lyrics of Earth (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12664, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lampman-lyrics/forest-moods.html, id L11091.
Form and metre
Forest Moods is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic 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 --AA woods · solitudes · fewA · trueA
- 2 AABB onA · goneA · cheerB · hereB
- 3 --AA woods · solitudes · thereA · fairA
- 4 AABB woeA · snowA · faceB · raceB
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods, | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| In the heart of the listening solitudes, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few, | 9 | ··/˘·/˘·· |
| And all the notes of their throats are true. | 9 | ········· |
| The thrush from the innermost ash takes on | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| A tender dream of the treasured and gone; | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer | 10 | ··/˘/˘···· |
| Of the might and light of the present and here. | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods, | 11 | ··/˘·/····· |
| In the heart of the sensitive solitudes, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| The roseate bell and the lily are there, | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| And every leaf of their sheaf is fair. | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Careless and bold, without dream of woe, | 9 | /˘······· |
| The trilliums scatter their flags snow; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
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.