Brooding Grief
A YELLOW leaf from the darknessHops like a frog before me.Why should I start and stand still?
I was watching the woman that bore meStretched in the brindled darknessOf the sick-room, rigid with willTo die: and the quick leaf tore meBack to this rainy swillOf leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.
Words in this poem
- brindled a.
- Having dark streaks or spots on a gray or tawny ground; brinded. [A dim. form of brinded.]
- tore n.
- The dead grass that remains on mowing land in winter and spring. Mortimer. [Probably from the root of tear; cf. W. tór a break, cut, tóri to break, cut.]
- swill v. t.
- To wash; to drench. [OE. swilen to wash, AS. swilian.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Brooding Grief is in the public domain. This text is taken from Amores: Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22531; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: D. H. Lawrence, Brooding Grief, in Amores (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22531, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lawrence-amores/brooding-grief.html, id L13577.
Form and metre
Brooding Grief is 9 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 67% 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.
- 2 A-BABA meA · darkness · willB · meA · swillB · meA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A YELLOW leaf from the darkness | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| Hops like a frog before me. | 7 | ······· |
| Why should I start and stand still? | 7 | ······· |
| I was watching the woman that bore me | 10 | ··/˘·/˘··· |
| Stretched in the brindled darkness | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Of the sick-room, rigid with will | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| To die: and the quick leaf tore me | 8 | ········ |
| Back to this rainy swill | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me. | 12 | ·····/˘/˘··· |
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.