Midsummer Noon
Yonder a workman, under the cool bridge,Resting at mid-day, watches the glancing midge,While twinkling lights and murmurs of the streamPass into the dim fabric of his dream.The misty hollows and the drowsy ridge--How like an airy fantasy they seem.
Words in this poem
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
- glancing a.
- Shooting, as light.
- midge n.
- Any one of many small, delicate, long-legged flies of the Chironomus, and allied genera, which do not bite. Their larvæ are usually aquatic.
- twinkling n.
- The act of one who, or of that which, twinkles; a quick movement of the eye; a wink; a twinkle. Holland.
- fantasy n.
- Fancy; imagination; especially, a whimsical or fanciful conception; a vagary of the imagination; whim; caprice; humor. [See Fancy.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Midsummer Noon 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, Midsummer Noon, 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/midsummer-noon.html, id L24786.
Form and metre
Midsummer Noon is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBAB bridgeA · midgeA · streamB · dreamB · ridgeA · seemB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Yonder a workman, under the cool bridge, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Resting at mid-day, watches the glancing midge, | 11 | /˘···/˘·/˘· |
| While twinkling lights and murmurs of the stream | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Pass into the dim fabric of his dream. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The misty hollows and the drowsy ridge-- | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| How like an airy fantasy they seem. | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
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.