Spring Storm
The sky has given overits bitterness.Out of the dark changeall day longrain falls and fallsas if it would never end.Still the snow keepsits hold on the ground.But water, waterfrom a thousand runnels!It collects swiftly,dappled with blackcuts a way for itselfthrough green ice in the gutters.Drop after drop it fallsfrom the withered grass-stemsof the overhanging embankment.
Words in this poem
- dappled a.
- Marked with spots of different shades of color; spotted; variegated; as, a dapple horse.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Spring Storm 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, Spring Storm, in Sour Grapes (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #35667, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-sour-grapes/spring-storm.html, id L01162.
Form and metre
Spring Storm is 17 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.4 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 59% 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-- over · bitterness · change · long · fallsA · end · keeps · ground · water · runnels · swiftly · black · itself · gutters · fallsA · stems · embankment
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The sky has given over | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| its bitterness. | 4 | ·/˘˘ |
| Out of the dark change | 5 | ····· |
| all day long | 3 | ··· |
| rain falls and falls | 4 | ···· |
| as if it would never end. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Still the snow keeps | 4 | ···· |
| its hold on the ground. | 5 | ····· |
| But water, water | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| from a thousand runnels! | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| It collects swiftly, | 5 | ·˘//˘ |
| dappled with black | 3 | ··· |
| cuts a way for itself | 6 | ····˘/ |
| through green ice in the gutters. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Drop after drop it falls | 6 | ······ |
| from the withered grass-stems | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| of the overhanging embankment. | 9 | ··/˘·˘˘/˘ |
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.