Chants of Autumn
Shorn by the frost with crystal blade,The dry leaves, scattered, fall at last;Among the valleys of Wu ChanCold winds of death go wailing past.Tumultuous waves of the great river riseAnd seem to storm the skies,While snow-bright peak and prairie mist combine,And greyness softens the harsh mountain line.
Chrysanthemums unfurl to-day,To-morrow the last flowers are blown.I am the barque that chains delay:My homeward thoughts must sail alone.From house to house warm winter robes are spread,And through the pine-woods redFloats up the sound of the washerman's bat who pliesHis hurried task ere the brief noon wanes and dies.
Words in this poem
- unfurl v. t.
- To loose from a furled state; to unfold; to expand; to open or spread; as, to unfurl sails; to unfurl a flag. [1st pref. un- + furl.]
- barque n.
- Formerly, any small sailing vessel, as a pinnace, fishing smack, etc.; also, a rowing boat; a barge. Now applied poetically to a sailing vessel or boat of any kind. [F. barque, fr. Sp. or It. barca, fr. LL. barca for barica. See Barge.]
- homeward a.
- Being in the direction of home; as, the homeward way.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chants of Autumn is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Lute of Jade, Project Gutenberg ebook #390, the L. Cranmer-Byng translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, Chants of Autumn, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/chants-of-autumn.html, id L15575.
Form and metre
Chants of Autumn is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 -ABACCBB blade · lastA · chanB · pastA · riseC · skiesC · combineB · lineB
- 2 ABABCCDD dayA · blownB · delayA · aloneB · spreadC · redC · pliesD · diesD
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Shorn by the frost with crystal blade, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The dry leaves, scattered, fall at last; | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| Among the valleys of Wu Chan | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Cold winds of death go wailing past. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Tumultuous waves of the great river rise | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And seem to storm the skies, | 6 | ······ |
| While snow-bright peak and prairie mist combine, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| And greyness softens the harsh mountain line. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Chrysanthemums unfurl to-day, | 8 | ˘/˘˘˘/·· |
| To-morrow the last flowers are blown. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| I am the barque that chains delay: | 8 | ······˘/ |
| My homeward thoughts must sail alone. | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| From house to house warm winter robes are spread, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And through the pine-woods red | 6 | ······ |
| Floats up the sound of the washerman's bat who plies | 12 | ············ |
| His hurried task ere the brief noon wanes and dies. | 11 | ·/˘········ |
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.