Autumn Within
It is autumn; not without,But within me is the cold.Youth and spring are all about;It is I that have grown old.
Birds are darting through the air,Singing, building without rest;Life is stirring everywhere,Save within my lonely breast.
There is silence: the dead leavesFall and rustle and are still;Beats no flail upon the sheavesComes no murmur from the mill.
Words in this poem
- rustle v. i.
- To make a quick succession of small sounds, like the rubbing or moving of silk cloth or dry leaves. [AS. hristlan to rustle; or cf. Sw. rusta to stir, make a riot, or E. rush, v.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Autumn Within is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Autumn Within, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/autumn-within.html, id L17827.
Form and metre
Autumn Within is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 withoutA · coldB · aboutA · oldB
- 2 ABAB airA · restB · everywhereA · breastB
- 3 ABAB leavesA · stillB · sheavesA · millB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| It is autumn; not without, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| But within me is the cold. | 7 | ······· |
| Youth and spring are all about; | 7 | ······· |
| It is I that have grown old. | 7 | ······· |
| Birds are darting through the air, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Singing, building without rest; | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Life is stirring everywhere, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Save within my lonely breast. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| There is silence: the dead leaves | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Fall and rustle and are still; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Beats no flail upon the sheaves | 7 | ······· |
| Comes no murmur from the mill. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.