Blizzard
Snow:years of anger followinghours that float idly down--the blizzarddrifts its weightdeeper and deeper for three daysor sixty years, eh? Thenthe sun! a clutter ofyellow and blue flakes--Hairy looking trees stand outin long alleysover a wild solitude.The man turns and there--his solitary track stretched outupon the world.
Words in this poem
- blizzard n.
- A gale of piercingly cold wind, usually accompanied with fine and blinding snow; a furious blast. [U. S.] [Cf. Blaze to flash. Formerly, in local use, a rattling volley; cf. "to blaze away" to fire away.]
- clutter v. t.
- To clot or coagulate, as blood. Holland. [From Clod, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Blizzard 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, Blizzard, in Sour Grapes (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #35667, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-sour-grapes/blizzard.html, id L01157.
Form and metre
Blizzard is 15 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.4 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 60% 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 ---------A---A- snow · following · down · blizzard · weight · days · then · of · flakes · outA · alleys · solitude · there · outA · world
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Snow: | 1 | · |
| years of anger following | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| hours that float idly down-- | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| the blizzard | 3 | ·/˘ |
| drifts its weight | 3 | ··· |
| deeper and deeper for three days | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| or sixty years, eh? Then | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| the sun! a clutter of | 6 | ···/˘· |
| yellow and blue flakes-- | 5 | /˘··· |
| Hairy looking trees stand out | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| in long alleys | 4 | ··/˘ |
| over a wild solitude. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| The man turns and there-- | 5 | ····· |
| his solitary track stretched out | 8 | ·/˘·˘··· |
| upon the world. | 4 | ···· |
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.