Stanza
If I walk in Autumn's evenWhile the dead leaves pass,If I look on Spring's soft heaven,--Something is not there which wasWinter's wondrous frost and snow,Summer's clouds, where are they now?
Words in this poem
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Stanza is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #4798; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Stanza, in Ode to the West Wind, and Other Poems (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/stanza.html, id L16464.
Form and metre
Stanza is 6 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in trochaic 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.
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| If I walk in Autumn's even | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| While the dead leaves pass, | 5 | ····· |
| If I look on Spring's soft heaven,-- | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Something is not there which was | 7 | /˘····· |
| Winter's wondrous frost and snow, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Summer's clouds, where are they now? | 7 | /˘····· |
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.