Out of May’s Shows Selected
Apple orchards, the trees all cover’d with blossoms;Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green;The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning;The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun;The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers.
Words in this poem
- exhaustless a.
- Not be exhausted; inexhaustible; as, an exhaustless fund or store.
- afternoon n.
- The part of the day which follows noon, between noon and evening.
- aspiring a.
- That aspires; as, an Aspiring mind.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Out of May’s Shows Selected 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, Out of May’s Shows Selected, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/out-of-may-s-shows-selected.html, id L04086.
Form and metre
Out of May’s Shows Selected is 5 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 14.8 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Apple orchards, the trees all cover’d with blossoms; | 12 | /˘/˘···/˘·/˘ |
| Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green; | 14 | ··/˘˘····/˘/˘· |
| The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning; | 15 | ·˘/˘˘/˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
| The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun; | 16 | ·/˘/˘˘/˘·····˘/· |
| The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers. | 17 | ·˘/˘/·/˘·˘//˘··/˘ |
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.