In September
The sky is silver-grey; the longSlow waves caress the shore.--On such a day as this I have been glad,Who shall be glad no more.
I sent my Soul through the InvisibleSome letter of that After-life to spell;And by and by my Soul returned to me,And answered, “I Myself am Heaven and Hell.”
Words in this poem
- caress n.
- An act of endearment; any act or expression of affection; an embracing, or touching, with tenderness. [F. caresse, It. carezza, LL. caritia dearness, fr. L. carus dear. See Charity.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In September 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, In September, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/in-september.html, id L21548.
Form and metre
In September is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 -A-A long · shoreA · glad · moreA
- 2 AA-A invisibleA · spellA · me · hellA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The sky is silver-grey; the long | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Slow waves caress the shore.-- | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| On such a day as this I have been glad, | 10 | ·········· |
| Who shall be glad no more. | 6 | ······ |
| I sent my Soul through the Invisible | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| Some letter of that After-life to spell; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And by and by my Soul returned to me, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| And answered, “I Myself am Heaven and Hell.” | 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.