Up And-Down
The sun is gone downAnd the moon's in the skyBut the sun will come upAnd the moon be laid by.
The flower is asleep.But it is not dead,When the morning shinesIt will lift its head.
When winter comesIt will die! No, no,It will only hideFrom the frost and snow.
Sure is the summer,Sure is the sun;The night and the winterAway they run.
About this text
Up And-Down is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #9984; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George MacDonald, Up And-Down, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/up-and-down.html, id L22343.
Form and metre
Up And-Down is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 -A-A down · skyA · up · byA
- 2 -A-A asleep · deadA · shines · headA
- 3 -A-A comes · noA · hide · snowA
- 4 -A-A summer · sunA · winter · runA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The sun is gone down | 5 | ····· |
| And the moon's in the sky | 6 | ······ |
| But the sun will come up | 6 | ······ |
| And the moon be laid by. | 6 | ······ |
| The flower is asleep. | 5 | ·/·˘/ |
| But it is not dead, | 5 | ····· |
| When the morning shines | 5 | ··/˘· |
| It will lift its head. | 5 | ····· |
| When winter comes | 4 | ·/˘· |
| It will die! No, no, | 5 | ····· |
| It will only hide | 5 | ··/˘· |
| From the frost and snow. | 5 | ····· |
| Sure is the summer, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Sure is the sun; | 4 | ···· |
| The night and the winter | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Away they run. | 4 | ˘/·· |
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.