Valley Candle
My candle burned alone in an immense valley.Beams of the huge night converged upon it,Until the wind blew.Then beams of the huge nightConverged upon its image,Until the wind blew.
About this text
Valley Candle is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harmonium, Project Gutenberg ebook #78743; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Wallace Stevens, Valley Candle, in Harmonium (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78743, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevens-harmonium/valley-candle.html, id L01033.
Form and metre
Valley Candle is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 96% 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.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 valley · it · blewA · night · image · blewA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My candle burned alone in an immense valley. | 12 | ·/˘·˘/··˘//˘ |
| Beams of the huge night converged upon it, | 10 | ·····˘/··· |
| Until the wind blew. | 5 | ····· |
| Then beams of the huge night | 6 | ······ |
| Converged upon its image, | 7 | ˘/···/˘ |
| Until the wind blew. | 5 | ····· |
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.