Summer Storm
The panther windLeaps out of the night,The snake of lightningIs twisting and white,The lion of thunderRoars--and weSit still and contentUnder a tree--We have met fate togetherAnd love and pain,Why should we fearThe wrath of the rain!
About this text
Summer Storm 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, Summer Storm, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/summer-storm.html, id L17018.
Form and metre
Summer Storm is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.8 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 58% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-B-B-C-C wind · nightA · lightning · whiteA · thunder · weB · content · treeB · together · painC · fear · rainC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The panther wind | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Leaps out of the night, | 5 | ····· |
| The snake of lightning | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Is twisting and white, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The lion of thunder | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| Roars--and we | 3 | ··· |
| Sit still and content | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Under a tree-- | 4 | ···· |
| We have met fate together | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| And love and pain, | 4 | ···· |
| Why should we fear | 4 | ···· |
| The wrath of the rain! | 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.