November
The world is tired, the year is old,The fading leaves are glad to die,The wind goes shivering with coldWhere the brown reeds are dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,And we who kissed grow coldly kind,Half glad to see our old love passLike leaves along the wind.
Words in this poem
- fading n.
- An Irish dance; also, the burden of a song.
- coldly adv.
- In a cold manner; without warmth, animation, or feeling; with indifference; calmly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
November is in the public domain. This text is taken from Love Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #442; 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, November, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/november.html, id L08061.
Form and metre
November is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 25% 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 ABAB oldA · dieB · coldA · dryB
- 2 ABAB grassA · kindB · passA · windB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The world is tired, the year is old, | 8 | ···/···· |
| The fading leaves are glad to die, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The wind goes shivering with cold | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Where the brown reeds are dry. | 6 | ······ |
| Our love is dying like the grass, | 8 | /··/˘··· |
| And we who kissed grow coldly kind, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Half glad to see our old love pass | 8 | ····/··· |
| Like leaves along the wind. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
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.