The Pity of the Leaves
Vengeful across the cold November moors,Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleakSad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek,Reverberant through lonely corridors.The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce,Words out of lips that were no more to speak --Words of the past that shook the old man's cheekLike dead, remembered footsteps on old floors.
And then there were the leaves that plagued him so!The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outsideSkipped with a freezing whisper. Now and thenThey stopped, and stayed there -- just to let him knowHow dead they were; but if the old man cried,They fluttered off like withered souls of men.
Words in this poem
- vengeful a.
- Vindictive; retributive; revengeful.
- reverberant a.
- Having the quality of reverberation; reverberating. [L. reverberans, p. pr. : cf. F. réverbérant. See Reverberate.]
- perforce v. t.
- To force; to compel.
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
- stayed a.
- Staid; fixed; settled; sober; -- now written staid. See Staid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Pity of the Leaves is in the public domain. This text is taken from Children of the Night, Project Gutenberg ebook #313; 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 Arlington Robinson, The Pity of the Leaves, in The Children of the Night (1897), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #313, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/robinson-children-of-night/the-pity-of-the-leaves.html, id L07997.
Form and metre
The Pity of the Leaves is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -AA--AA- moors · bleakA · shriekA · corridors · perforce · speakA · cheekA · floors
- 2 ABCABC soA · outsideB · thenC · knowA · criedB · menC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Vengeful across the cold November moors, | 10 | /˘˘/··˘/˘· |
| Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleak | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Sad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Reverberant through lonely corridors. | 10 | ˘/˘˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Words out of lips that were no more to speak -- | 10 | ·········· |
| Words of the past that shook the old man's cheek | 10 | ·········· |
| Like dead, remembered footsteps on old floors. | 10 | ··˘/˘/···· |
| And then there were the leaves that plagued him so! | 10 | ·········· |
| The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outside | 10 | ········// |
| Skipped with a freezing whisper. Now and then | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| They stopped, and stayed there -- just to let him know | 10 | ·········· |
| How dead they were; but if the old man cried, | 10 | ·········· |
| They fluttered off like withered souls of men. | 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.