A Winter Day
The air is silent save where stirsA bugling breeze among the firs;The virgin world in white arrayWaits for the bridegroom kiss of day;All heaven blooms rarely in the eastWhere skies are silvery and fleeced,And o'er the orient hills made gladThe morning comes in wonder clad;Oh, 'tis a time most fit to seeHow beautiful the dawn can be!
Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lieBeneath a blue, unshadowed sky;A glistening splendor crowns the woodsAnd bosky, whistling solitudes;In hemlock glen and reedy mereThe tang of frost is sharp and clear;Life hath a jollity and zest,A poignancy made manifest;Laughter and courage have their wayAt noontide of a winter's day.
Faint music rings in wold and dell,The tinkling of a distant bell,Where homestead lights with friendly glowGlimmer across the drifted snow ;Beyond a valley dim and farLit by an occidental star,Tall pines the marge of day besetLike many a slender minaret,Whence priest-like winds on crystal airSummon the reverent world to prayer.
Words in this poem
- bridegroom n.
- A man newly married, or just about to be married. [OE. bridegome, brudgume, AS. br (akin to OS. br, D. bruidegom, bruigom, OHG. pr, MHG. briutegome, G. bräutigam); AS. br bride + guma man, akin to Goth. guma, Ic]
- fleeced a.
- Furnished with a fleece; as, a sheep is well fleeced.
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- bosky a.
- Woody or bushy; covered with boscage or thickets. [Cf. Bushy.]
- zest n.
- A piece of orange or lemon peel, or the aromatic oil which may be squeezed from such peel, used to give flavor to liquor, etc. [F. zeste, probably fr. L. schistos split, cleft, divided, Gr. Schism.]
- poignancy n.
- The quality or state of being poignant; as, the poignancy of satire; the poignancy of grief.
- noontide n.
- The time of noon; midday. [From noon + tide time; cf. AS. n the ninth hour.]
- wold n.
- A wood; a forest. [OE. wold, wald, AS. weald, wald, a wood, forest; akin to OFries. & OS. wald, D. woud, G. wald, Icel. völlr, a field, and probably to Gr. va a garden, inclosure.]
- dell n.
- A small, retired valley; a ravine. [AS. del, akin to E. dale; cf. D. delle, del, low ground. See Dale.]
- marge n.
- Border; margin; edge; verge. [F. marge. See Margin.]
- minaret n.
- A slender, lofty tower attached to a mosque and surrounded by one or more projecting balconies, from which the summon to prayer is cried by the muezzin. [Sp. minarete, Ar. manarat lamp, lantern, lighthouse, turret, fr. nar to shine.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Winter Day 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 Day, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/a-winter-day.html, id L29403.
Form and metre
A Winter Day is 30 lines in 3 stanzas of 10 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBCCDDEE. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 AABBCCDDEE stirsA · firsA · arrayB · dayB · eastC · fleecedC · gladD · cladD · seeE · beE
- 2 AABBCCDDEE lieA · skyA · woodsB · solitudesB · mereC · clearC · zestD · manifestD · wayE · dayE
- 3 AABBCCDDEE dellA · bellA · glowB · snowB · farC · starC · besetD · minaretD · airE · prayerE
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 air is silent save where stirs | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A bugling breeze among the firs; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The virgin world in white array | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day; | 8 | ···/···· |
| All heaven blooms rarely in the east | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| Where skies are silvery and fleeced, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| And o'er the orient hills made glad | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| The morning comes in wonder clad; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Oh, 'tis a time most fit to see | 8 | ········ |
| How beautiful the dawn can be! | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky; | 8 | ········ |
| A glistening splendor crowns the woods | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And bosky, whistling solitudes; | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| In hemlock glen and reedy mere | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| The tang of frost is sharp and clear; | 8 | ········ |
| Life hath a jollity and zest, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| A poignancy made manifest; | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| Laughter and courage have their way | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| At noontide of a winter's day. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Faint music rings in wold and dell, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The tinkling of a distant bell, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Where homestead lights with friendly glow | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| Glimmer across the drifted snow ; | 8 | /˘˘/·/˘· |
| Beyond a valley dim and far | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Lit by an occidental star, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Tall pines the marge of day beset | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Like many a slender minaret, | 8 | ·/·/˘·˘/ |
| Whence priest-like winds on crystal air | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Summon the reverent world to prayer. | 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.