There Is a Solemn Wind To-Night
There is a solemn wind to-nightThat sings of solemn rain;The trees that have been quiet so longFlutter and start again.
The slender trees, the heavy trees,The fruit trees laden and proud,Lift up their branches to the windThat cries to them so loud.
The little bushes and the plantsBow to the solemn sound,And every tiniest blade of grassShakes on the quiet ground.
About this text
There Is a Solemn Wind To-Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59276; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Katherine Mansfield, There Is a Solemn Wind To-Night, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59276, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mansfield-poems/there-is-a-solemn-wind-to-night.html, id L27607.
Form and metre
There Is a Solemn Wind To-Night is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 night · rainA · long · againA
- 2 -A-A trees · proudA · wind · loudA
- 3 -A-A plants · soundA · grass · groundA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There is a solemn wind to-night | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That sings of solemn rain; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The trees that have been quiet so long | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Flutter and start again. | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| The slender trees, the heavy trees, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The fruit trees laden and proud, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Lift up their branches to the wind | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That cries to them so loud. | 6 | ······ |
| The little bushes and the plants | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Bow to the solemn sound, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And every tiniest blade of grass | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Shakes on the quiet ground. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.