The Cherry Trees
THE cherry trees bend over and are sheddingOn the old road where all that passed are dead,Their petals, strewing the grass as for a weddingThis early May morn when there is none to wed.
Words in this poem
- strewing n.
- The act of scattering or spreading.
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Cherry Trees is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22423; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edward Thomas, The Cherry Trees, in Poems (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22423, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/thomas-edward-poems/the-cherry-trees.html, id L08159.
Form and metre
The Cherry Trees is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 sheddingA · deadB · weddingA · wedB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE cherry trees bend over and are shedding | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| On the old road where all that passed are dead, | 10 | ·········· |
| Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding | 12 | ·/˘/˘·····/˘ |
| This early May morn when there is none to wed. | 11 | ·/˘········ |
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.