November
The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I,Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace;With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,A steed Thessalian with a human face.Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chaseThe leaves, half dead already with affright;I shroud myself in gloom; and to the raceOf mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.
Words in this poem
- centaur n.
- A fabulous being, represented as half man and half horse.
- steed n.
- A horse, especially a spirited horse for state of war; -- used chiefly in poetry or stately prose. [OE. stede, AS. steda a stud-horse, war horse, fr. stod a stud of breeding steeds; akin to G. stute a mare, Icel. stedda, sto, a stud. *163. See Stud of horses.]
- thessalian a.
- Of or pertaining to Thessaly in Greece. [Cf. L. Thessalius.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
November 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, November, in A Psalm of Life, and Other Poems (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/november.html, id L17825.
Form and metre
November is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABBCBC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABBCBC iA · embraceB · flyA · faceB · chaseB · affrightC · raceB · delightC
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 Centaur, Sagittarius, am I, | 9 | ·/······· |
| Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace; | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| A steed Thessalian with a human face. | 11 | ··˘/˘˘··/˘· |
| Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The leaves, half dead already with affright; | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race | 10 | ···/······ |
| Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight. | 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.