Sonnet IV
Up at his attic sill the South wind cameAnd days of sun and storm but never peace.Along the town's tumultuous arteriesHe heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame:Each night the whistles in the bay, the sameWhirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars:For smoke that half obscured, the circling starsBurnt like his youth with but a sickly flame.Up to his attic came the city cries --The throes with which her iron sinews heave --And yet forever behind prison doorsWelled in his heart and trembled in his eyesThe light that hangs on desert hills at eveAnd tints the sea on solitary shores. . . .
About this text
Sonnet IV is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #617; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alan Seeger, Sonnet IV, in Poems (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #617, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/seeger-poems/sonnet-iv.html, id L12937.
Form and metre
Sonnet IV is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 A--AABBACDECDE cameA · peace · arteries · frameA · sameA · carsB · starsB · flameA · criesC · heaveD · doorsE · eyesC · eveD · shoresE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Up at his attic sill the South wind came | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And days of sun and storm but never peace. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Along the town's tumultuous arteries | 11 | ˘/···/˘˘/˘˘ |
| He heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame: | 11 | ·······/˘˘· |
| Each night the whistles in the bay, the same | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars: | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| For smoke that half obscured, the circling stars | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| Burnt like his youth with but a sickly flame. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Up to his attic came the city cries -- | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The throes with which her iron sinews heave -- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And yet forever behind prison doors | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Welled in his heart and trembled in his eyes | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The light that hangs on desert hills at eve | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And tints the sea on solitary shores. . . . | 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.