Winter Song
Rain and wind, and wind and rain.Will the Summer come again?Rain on houses, on the street,Wetting all the people’s feet.Though they run with might and main.Rain and wind, and wind and rain.
Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.Will the Winter never go?What do beggar children doWith no fire to cuddle to,P’raps with nowhere warm to go?Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.
Hail and ice, and ice and hail,Water frozen in the pail.See the robins, brown and red,They are waiting to be fed.Poor dears; battling in the gale!Hail and ice, and ice and hail.
Words in this poem
- sleet n.
- The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.
- cuddle v. i.
- To She cuddles low beneath the brake; Nor would she stay, nor dares she fly. Prior. [Prob. for couthle, fr. couth known; cf. OE. kuppen to cuddle, or cu to make friends with. SeeCouth, Uncouth, Can.]
- nowhere adv.
- Not anywhere; not in any place or state; as, the book is nowhere to be found. [AS. nahwær. See No, and Where.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Winter Song 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, Winter Song, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59276, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mansfield-poems/winter-song.html, id L27622.
Form and metre
Winter Song is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBAA. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 AABBAA rainA · againA · streetB · feetB · mainA · rainA
- 2 AABBAA snowA · goA · doB · toB · goA · snowA
- 3 AABBAA hailA · pailA · redB · fedB · galeA · hailA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Rain and wind, and wind and rain. | 7 | ······· |
| Will the Summer come again? | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Rain on houses, on the street, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Wetting all the people’s feet. | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Though they run with might and main. | 7 | ······· |
| Rain and wind, and wind and rain. | 7 | ······· |
| Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow. | 7 | ······· |
| Will the Winter never go? | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| What do beggar children do | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| With no fire to cuddle to, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| P’raps with nowhere warm to go? | 7 | ··/···· |
| Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow. | 7 | ······· |
| Hail and ice, and ice and hail, | 7 | ······· |
| Water frozen in the pail. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| See the robins, brown and red, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| They are waiting to be fed. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Poor dears; battling in the gale! | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Hail and ice, and ice and hail. | 7 | ······· |
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.