The Vireo
Upon the lofty elm-tree spraysThe vireo rings the changes sweet,During the trivial summer days,Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.
Words in this poem
- trivial a.
- Found anywhere; common. [L. trivialis, properly, that is in, or belongs to, the crossroads or public streets; hence, that may be found everywhere, common, fr. trivium a place where thre]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Vireo is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Nature, Project Gutenberg ebook #59988; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry David Thoreau, The Vireo, in Poems of Nature (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59988, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/thoreau-poems/the-vireo.html, id L02821.
Form and metre
The Vireo 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 tetrameter. 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables.
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 spraysA · sweetB · daysA · streetB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The vireo rings the changes sweet, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| During the trivial summer days, | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘· |
| Striving to lift our thoughts above the street. | 10 | /˘··/····· |
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.