Griefs
The rains of winter scourged the weald,For days they darkened on the field:Now, where the wings of winter beat,The poppies ripple in the wheat.
And pitiless griefs came thick and fast--Life’s bough was naked in the blast--Till silently amid the gloomThey blew the wintry heart to bloom.
Words in this poem
- weald n.
- A wood or forest; a wooded land or region; also, an open country; -- often used in place names. [AS. See Wold.]
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Griefs is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, Griefs, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/griefs.html, id L24788.
Form and metre
Griefs is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 AABB wealdA · fieldA · beatB · wheatB
- 2 AABB fastA · blastA · gloomB · bloomB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The rains of winter scourged the weald, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For days they darkened on the field: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Now, where the wings of winter beat, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The poppies ripple in the wheat. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And pitiless griefs came thick and fast-- | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Life’s bough was naked in the blast-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Till silently amid the gloom | 8 | ·/˘˘˘/·· |
| They blew the wintry heart to bloom. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
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.