Out of Town
Out of town the sky was bright and blue,Never fog-cloud, lowering, thick, was seen to frown;Nature dons a garb of gayer hue,Out of town.
Spotless lay the snow on field and down,Pure and keen the air above it blew;All wore peace and beauty for a crown.
London sky, marred by smoke, veiled from view,London snow, trodden thin, dingy brown,Whence that strange unrest at thoughts of youOut of town?
Words in this poem
- garb n.
- External appearance, as expressive of the feelings or character; looks; fashion or manner, as of speech. [OF. garbe looks, countenance, grace, ornament, fr. OHG. garawi, garwi, ornament, dress. akin to E. gear. See Gear, n.]
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Out of Town 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, Out of Town, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/out-of-town.html, id L21528.
Form and metre
Out of Town is 11 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB blueA · frownB · hueA · townB
- 2 A-A downA · blew · crownA
- 3 ABAB viewA · brownB · youA · townB
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 trochaic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Out of town the sky was bright and blue, | 9 | ········· |
| Never fog-cloud, lowering, thick, was seen to frown; | 10 | /··/˘····· |
| Nature dons a garb of gayer hue, | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| Out of town. | 3 | ··· |
| Spotless lay the snow on field and down, | 9 | /˘······· |
| Pure and keen the air above it blew; | 9 | ········· |
| All wore peace and beauty for a crown. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| London sky, marred by smoke, veiled from view, | 9 | /˘······· |
| London snow, trodden thin, dingy brown, | 9 | /˘·/˘·/˘· |
| Whence that strange unrest at thoughts of you | 9 | ···˘/···· |
| Out of town? | 3 | ··· |
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.