Snowfall
"She can't be unhappy," you said,"The smiles are like stars in her eyes,And her laugh is thistledownAround her low replies.""Is she unhappy?" you said--But who has ever knownAnother's heartbreak--All he can know is his own;And she seems hushed to me,As hushed as thoughHer heart were a hunter's fireSmothered in snow.
Words in this poem
- heartbreak n.
- Crushing sorrow or grief; a yielding to such grief.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Snowfall is in the public domain. This text is taken from Flame and Shadow, Project Gutenberg ebook #591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sara Teasdale, Snowfall, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/snowfall.html, id L17012.
Form and metre
Snowfall is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% 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 ABCBAC-C-D-D saidA · eyesB · thistledownC · repliesB · saidA · knownC · heartbreak · ownC · me · thoughD · fire · snowD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "She can't be unhappy," you said, | 8 | ···˘/˘·· |
| "The smiles are like stars in her eyes, | 8 | ········ |
| And her laugh is thistledown | 7 | ······· |
| Around her low replies." | 6 | ····˘/ |
| "Is she unhappy?" you said-- | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
| But who has ever known | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Another's heartbreak-- | 5 | ˘/˘/· |
| All he can know is his own; | 7 | ······· |
| And she seems hushed to me, | 7 | ····˘·· |
| As hushed as though | 4 | ···· |
| Her heart were a hunter's fire | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Smothered in snow. | 4 | /˘·· |
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.