Winter Stars
I went out at night alone;The young blood flowing beyond the seaSeemed to have drenched my spirit's wings--I bore my sorrow heavily.
But when I lifted up my headFrom shadows shaken on the snow,I saw Orion in the eastBurn steadily as long ago.
From windows in my father's house,Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,I watched Orion as a girlAbove another city's lights.
Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,The world's heart breaks beneath its wars,All things are changed, save in the eastThe faithful beauty of the stars.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- orion n.
- A large and bright constellation on the equator, between the stars Aldebaran and Sirius. It contains a remarkable nebula visible to the naked eye.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Winter Stars 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, Winter Stars, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/winter-stars.html, id L17001.
Form and metre
Winter Stars is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 31% 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.
- 2 -A-A head · snowA · east · agoA
- 3 -A-A house · nightsA · girl · lightsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I went out at night alone; | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| The young blood flowing beyond the sea | 8 | ···/···· |
| Seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I bore my sorrow heavily. | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| But when I lifted up my head | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| From shadows shaken on the snow, | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| I saw Orion in the east | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Burn steadily as long ago. | 8 | ·/˘˘··˘/ |
| From windows in my father's house, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Dreaming my dreams on winter nights, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| I watched Orion as a girl | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Above another city's lights. | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too, | 8 | ········ |
| The world's heart breaks beneath its wars, | 8 | ········ |
| All things are changed, save in the east | 8 | ········ |
| The faithful beauty of the 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.