Snowbirds
Along the narrow sandy heightI watch them swiftly come and go,Or round the leafless wood,Like flurries of wind-driven snow,Revolving in perpetual flight,A changing multitude.
Nearer and nearer still they sway,And, scattering in a circled sweep,Rush down without a sound;And now I see them peer and peep,Across yon level bleak and gray,Searching the frozen ground,--
Until a little wind upheaves,And makes a sudden rustling there,And then they drop their play,Flash up into the sunless air,And like a flight of silver leavesSwirl round and sweep away.
Words in this poem
- circled a.
- Having the form of a circle; round.
- sunless a.
- Destitute or deprived of the sun or its rays; shaded; shadowed.
- swirl v. t.
- To whirl, or cause to whirl, as in an eddy. [Akin to Norw. svirla to whirl, freq. of sverra to whirl, Dan. svirre, G. schwirren to whiz, to buzz. *177. See Swarm, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Snowbirds 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, Snowbirds, in Lyrics of Earth (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12664, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lampman-lyrics/snowbirds.html, id L11112.
Form and metre
Snowbirds is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABCBAC, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AB-BA- heightA · goB · wood · snowB · flightA · multitude
- 2 ABCBAC swayA · sweepB · soundC · peepB · grayA · groundC
- 3 ABCBAC upheavesA · thereB · playC · airB · leavesA · awayC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Along the narrow sandy height | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| I watch them swiftly come and go, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or round the leafless wood, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Like flurries of wind-driven snow, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Revolving in perpetual flight, | 8 | ˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| A changing multitude. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Nearer and nearer still they sway, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| And, scattering in a circled sweep, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Rush down without a sound; | 6 | ······ |
| And now I see them peer and peep, | 8 | ········ |
| Across yon level bleak and gray, | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| Searching the frozen ground,-- | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Until a little wind upheaves, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And makes a sudden rustling there, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And then they drop their play, | 6 | ······ |
| Flash up into the sunless air, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And like a flight of silver leaves | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Swirl round and sweep away. | 6 | ····˘/ |
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.