Metric Figure
There is a bird in the poplars!It is the sun!The leaves are little yellow fishswimming in the river.The bird skims above them,day is on his wings.Phœbus!It is he that is makingthe great gleam among the poplars!It is his singingoutshines the noiseof leaves clashing in the wind.
About this text
Metric Figure is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Book of Poems, Al Que Quiere!, Project Gutenberg ebook #51997; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Carlos Williams, Metric Figure, in Al Que Quiere! (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51997, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-al-que-quiere/metric-figure.html, id L01092.
Form and metre
Metric Figure is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.8 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 A-------A-A- poplarsA · sun · fish · river · them · wings · phœbus · making · poplarsA · singing · noiseA · wind
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There is a bird in the poplars! | 8 | ······/˘ |
| It is the sun! | 4 | ···· |
| The leaves are little yellow fish | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| swimming in the river. | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| The bird skims above them, | 6 | ······ |
| day is on his wings. | 5 | ····· |
| Phœbus! | 2 | ·· |
| It is he that is making | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| the great gleam among the poplars! | 8 | ······/˘ |
| It is his singing | 5 | ···/˘ |
| outshines the noise | 4 | /··· |
| of leaves clashing in the wind. | 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.