Winter-Time
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;Blinks but an hour or two; and then,A blood-red orange, sets again.
Before the stars have left the skies,At morning in the dark I rise;And shivering in my nakedness,By the cold candle, bathe and dress.
Close by the jolly fire I sitTo warm my frozen bones a bit;Or with a reindeer-sled, exploreThe colder countries round the door.
When to go out, my nurse doth wrapMe in my comforter and cap;The cold wind burns my face, and blowsIts frosty pepper up my nose.
Black are my steps on silver sod;Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;And tree and house, and hill and lake,Are frosted like a wedding cake.
Words in this poem
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- nakedness n.
- The condition of being naked.
- explore v. t.
- To seek for or after; to strive to attain by search; to look wisely and carefully for. [L. explorare to explore; ex out+plorare to cry out aloud,prob. orig., to cause to flow; perh. akin to E. flow: cf. F. explorer.]
- comforter n.
- One who administers comfort or consolation.
- frosted a.
- Covered with hoarfrost or anything resembling hoarfrost; ornamented with frosting; also, frost-bitten; as, a frosted cake; frosted glass.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Winter-Time is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Child's Garden of Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #136; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Louis Stevenson, Winter-Time, in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #136, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevenson-childs-garden/winter-time.html, id L07209.
Form and metre
Winter-Time is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 bedA · headA · thenB · againB
- 2 AABB skiesA · riseA · nakednessB · dressB
- 3 AABB sitA · bitA · exploreB · doorB
- 4 AABB wrapA · capA · blowsB · noseB
- 5 AABB sodA · abroadA · lakeB · cakeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Blinks but an hour or two; and then, | 8 | ···/···· |
| A blood-red orange, sets again. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Before the stars have left the skies, | 8 | ········ |
| At morning in the dark I rise; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And shivering in my nakedness, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘˘ |
| By the cold candle, bathe and dress. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Close by the jolly fire I sit | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| To warm my frozen bones a bit; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or with a reindeer-sled, explore | 8 | ···/··˘/ |
| The colder countries round the door. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| When to go out, my nurse doth wrap | 8 | ········ |
| Me in my comforter and cap; | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| The cold wind burns my face, and blows | 8 | ········ |
| Its frosty pepper up my nose. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Black are my steps on silver sod; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And tree and house, and hill and lake, | 8 | ········ |
| Are frosted like a wedding cake. | 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.