A Winter Dawn
Above the marge of night a star still shines,And on the frosty hills the sombre pinesHarbor an eerie wind that crooneth lowOver the glimmering wastes of virgin snow.
Through the pale arch of orient the mornComes in a milk-white splendor newly-born,A sword of crimson cuts in twain the grayBanners of shadow hosts, and lo, the day!
Words in this poem
- marge n.
- Border; margin; edge; verge. [F. marge. See Margin.]
- sombre n.
- Gloom; obscurity; duskiness; somberness.
- eerie a.
- Serving to inspire fear, esp. a dread of seeing ghosts; wild; weird; as, eerie stories. [Scotch, fr. AS. earh timid.]
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Winter Dawn is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, A Winter Dawn, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/a-winter-dawn.html, id L29406.
Form and metre
A Winter Dawn is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See 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 AABB shinesA · pinesA · lowB · snowB
- 2 AABB mornA · bornA · grayB · dayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Above the marge of night a star still shines, | 10 | ·········· |
| And on the frosty hills the sombre pines | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Harbor an eerie wind that crooneth low | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Over the glimmering wastes of virgin snow. | 10 | ··/˘˘··/˘· |
| Through the pale arch of orient the morn | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Comes in a milk-white splendor newly-born, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| A sword of crimson cuts in twain the gray | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Banners of shadow hosts, and lo, the day! | 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.