Between the Showers
Between the showers I went my way,The glistening street was bright with flowers;It seemed that March had turned to MayBetween the showers.
Above the shining roofs and towersThe blue broke forth athwart the grey;Birds carolled in their leafless bowers.
Hither and thither, swift and gay,The people chased the changeful hours;And you, you passed and smiled that day,Between the showers.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
- changeful a.
- Full of change; mutable; inconstant; fickle; uncertain.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Between the Showers is in the public domain. This text is taken from A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #56974; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Levy, Between the Showers, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/between-the-showers.html, id L21527.
Form and metre
Between the Showers is 11 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. 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 ABAB wayA · flowersB · mayA · showersB
- 2 A-A towersA · grey · bowersA
- 3 ABAB gayA · hoursB · dayA · showersB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Between the showers I went my way, | 8 | ···/···· |
| The glistening street was bright with flowers; | 8 | ·/˘····/ |
| It seemed that March had turned to May | 8 | ········ |
| Between the showers. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Above the shining roofs and towers | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| The blue broke forth athwart the grey; | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Birds carolled in their leafless bowers. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Hither and thither, swift and gay, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| The people chased the changeful hours; | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And you, you passed and smiled that day, | 8 | ········ |
| Between the showers. | 5 | ···/˘ |
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.