The Nightingales
My shoes as I leanunlacing themstand out uponflat worsted flowersunder my feet.Nimbly the shadowsof my fingers playunlacingover shoes and flowers.
About this text
The Nightingales 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, The Nightingales, in Sour Grapes (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #35667, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-sour-grapes/the-nightingales.html, id L01185.
Form and metre
The Nightingales is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.6 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 78% 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 ---A-A--A lean · them · upon · flowersA · feet · shadowsA · play · unlacing · flowersA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My shoes as I lean | 5 | ····· |
| unlacing them | 4 | ···· |
| stand out upon | 4 | ···· |
| flat worsted flowers | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| under my feet. | 4 | ···· |
| Nimbly the shadows | 5 | /˘·/· |
| of my fingers play | 5 | ··/˘· |
| unlacing | 3 | ··· |
| over shoes and flowers. | 6 | ····/˘ |
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.