When the Cloud Comes Down the Mountain
When the cloud comes down the mountain,And the rain is loud on the leaves,And the slim flies gather for shelterUnder my cabin eaves,--
Then my heart goes out to earth,With the swollen brook runs free,Drinks life with the drenched brown roots,And climbs with the sap in the tree.
About this text
When the Cloud Comes Down the Mountain is in the public domain. This text is taken from New Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59897; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charles G. D. Roberts, When the Cloud Comes Down the Mountain, in New Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59897, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/roberts-new-poems/when-the-cloud-comes-down-the-mountain.html, id L11136.
Form and metre
When the Cloud Comes Down the Mountain is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-A mountain · leavesA · shelter · eavesA
- 2 -A-A earth · freeA · roots · treeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When the cloud comes down the mountain, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And the rain is loud on the leaves, | 8 | ········ |
| And the slim flies gather for shelter | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| Under my cabin eaves,-- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Then my heart goes out to earth, | 7 | ······· |
| With the swollen brook runs free, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Drinks life with the drenched brown roots, | 7 | ······· |
| And climbs with the sap in the tree. | 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.