September
I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoiseThe night and day; and when unto my lipsI put my trumpet, with its stress and noiseFly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight;The hedges are all red with haws and hips,The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night.
About this text
September 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, September, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/september.html, id L17823.
Form and metre
September is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABBCBC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% 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 equipoiseA · lipsB · noiseA · shipsB · whipsB · flightC · hipsB · nightC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoise | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| The night and day; and when unto my lips | 10 | ·········· |
| I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight; | 10 | /·/˘˘····· |
| The hedges are all red with haws and hips, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night. | 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.