By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame
By the bivouac’s fitful flame,A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow--butfirst I note,The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline,The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence,Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthilywatching me,)While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those thatare far away;A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,By the bivouac’s fitful flame.
Words in this poem
- fitful a.
- Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable. [From 7th Fit.]
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/by-the-bivouac-s-fitful-flame.html, id L03948.
Form and metre
By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame is 13 lines in a single stanza. 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 23% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AB-------B--A flameA · butB · note · outline · silence · moving · stealthily · me · thoughts · thatB · away · ground · flameA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| By the bivouac’s fitful flame, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow--but | 16 | ·˘/˘/˘···/˘····· |
| first I note, | 3 | ··· |
| The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline, | 15 | ····/˘/˘·····/· |
| The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence, | 14 | ·/˘····/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving, | 16 | ··/˘····˘/˘˘/˘/˘ |
| The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily | 16 | ·············/˘˘ |
| watching me,) | 3 | /˘· |
| While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts, | 14 | ···˘/˘··/˘·/˘· |
| Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those that | 15 | ··············· |
| are far away; | 4 | ··˘/ |
| A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, | 15 | ·/˘··˘/˘······· |
| By the bivouac’s fitful flame. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
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.