The Roof I
When the clouds hide the sun awayThe tall slate roof is dull and grey,And when the rain adown it streams'Tis polished lead with pale-blue gleams.
When the clouds vanish and the rainStops, and the sun comes out again,It shimmers golden in the sunAlmost too bright to look upon.
But soon beneath the steady raysThe roof is dried and reft of blaze,'Tis dusty yellow traversed throughBy long thin lines of deepest blue.
Then at the last, as night draws near,The lines grow faint and disappear,The roof becomes a purple mist,A great square darkening amethyst
Which sinks into the gathering shadeTill separate form and colour fade,And it is but a patch which marsThe beauty of a field of stars.
Words in this poem
- adown adv.
- From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. [OE. adun, adoun, adune. AS. of dune off the hill. See Down.]
- reft n.
- A chink; a rift. See Rift. Rom. of R.
- amethyst
- A variety of crystallized quartz, of a purple or bluish violet color, of different shades. It is much used as a jeweler's stone. [F. ametiste, amatiste, F. améthyste, L. amethystus, fr. Gr. Mead.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Roof I is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, The Roof I, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/the-roof-i.html, id L23148.
Form and metre
The Roof I is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 AABB awayA · greyA · streamsB · gleamsB
- 2 AA-- rainA · againA · sun · upon
- 3 AABB raysA · blazeA · throughB · blueB
- 4 AABB nearA · disappearA · mistB · amethystB
- 5 AABB shadeA · fadeA · marsB · starsB
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 clouds hide the sun away | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The tall slate roof is dull and grey, | 8 | ········ |
| And when the rain adown it streams | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| 'Tis polished lead with pale-blue gleams. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| When the clouds vanish and the rain | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Stops, and the sun comes out again, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| It shimmers golden in the sun | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Almost too bright to look upon. | 8 | /······· |
| But soon beneath the steady rays | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The roof is dried and reft of blaze, | 8 | ········ |
| 'Tis dusty yellow traversed through | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| By long thin lines of deepest blue. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Then at the last, as night draws near, | 8 | ········ |
| The lines grow faint and disappear, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The roof becomes a purple mist, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| A great square darkening amethyst | 9 | ···/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Which sinks into the gathering shade | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Till separate form and colour fade, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| And it is but a patch which mars | 8 | ········ |
| The beauty of a field of stars. | 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.