Arrival
And yet one arrives somehow,finds himself loosening the hooks ofher dressin a strange bedroom--feels the autumndropping its silk and linen leavesabout her ankles.The tawdry veined body emergestwisted upon itselflike a winter wind...!
Words in this poem
- somehow adv.
- In one way or another; in some way not yet known or designated; by some means; as, the thing must be done somehow; he lives somehow.
- bedroom n.
- A room or apartment intended or used for a bed; a lodging room.
- tawdry a.
- Bought at the festival of St. Audrey. [Said to be corrupted from Saint Audrey, or Auldrey, meaning Saint Ethelreda, implying therefore, originally, bought at the fair of St. Audrey, where laces and g]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Arrival is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #35667; 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, Arrival, in Sour Grapes (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #35667, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-sour-grapes/arrival.html, id L01178.
Form and metre
Arrival is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 80% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.0 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 60% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 ---AA----- somehow · of · dress · bedroomA · autumnA · leaves · ankles · emerges · itself · 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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| And yet one arrives somehow, | 7 | ···˘//· |
| finds himself loosening the hooks of | 9 | ·˘//˘˘··· |
| her dress | 2 | ·· |
| in a strange bedroom-- | 5 | ···/· |
| feels the autumn | 4 | ··/˘ |
| dropping its silk and linen leaves | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| about her ankles. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| The tawdry veined body emerges | 9 | ·/˘·/˘˘/˘ |
| twisted upon itself | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| like a winter wind...! | 5 | ··/˘· |
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.