North Wind
I love you, malcontentMale wind--Shaking the pollen from a flowerOr hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.
Blow on and over my dreams...Scatter my sick dreams...Throw your lusty arms about me...Envelop all my hot body...Carry me to pine forests--Great, rough-bearded forests...Bring me to stark plains and steppes...I would have the North to-night--The cold, enduring North.
And if we should meet the Snow,Whirling in spirals,And he should blind my eyes...Ally, you will defend me--You will hold me close,Blowing on my eyelids.
Words in this poem
- malcontent a.
- discontented; uneasy; dissatisfied; especially, dissatisfied with the government. [F., fr. mal ill + content. See Malice, Content.]
- pollen n.
- Fine bran or flour. Bailey.
- stark adv.
- Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mind.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
North Wind is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Ghetto, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #4332; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lola Ridge, North Wind, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/north-wind.html, id L20900.
Form and metre
North Wind is 19 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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.
- 2 AA--BB--- dreamsA · dreamsA · me · body · forestsB · forestsB · steppes · night · north
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I love you, malcontent | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Male wind-- | 2 | ·· |
| Shaking the pollen from a flower | 9 | /˘·/˘··/˘ |
| Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand. | 12 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘· |
| Blow on and over my dreams... | 7 | ······· |
| Scatter my sick dreams... | 5 | /˘··· |
| Throw your lusty arms about me... | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Envelop all my hot body... | 8 | ˘/˘···/˘ |
| Carry me to pine forests-- | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Great, rough-bearded forests... | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Bring me to stark plains and steppes... | 7 | ······· |
| I would have the North to-night-- | 7 | ······· |
| The cold, enduring North. | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| And if we should meet the Snow, | 7 | ······· |
| Whirling in spirals, | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| And he should blind my eyes... | 6 | ······ |
| Ally, you will defend me-- | 7 | /˘··˘/· |
| You will hold me close, | 5 | ····· |
| Blowing on my eyelids. | 6 | /˘··/· |
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.