Thursday
I have had my dream--like others--and it has come to nothing, so thatI remain now carelesslywith feet planted on the groundand look up at the sky--feeling my clothes about me,the weight of my body in my shoes,the rim of my hat, air passing in and outat my nose--and decide to dream no more.
About this text
Thursday 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, Thursday, in Sour Grapes (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #35667, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-sour-grapes/thursday.html, id L01164.
Form and metre
Thursday is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 44% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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--- others · that · carelessly · ground · skyA · meA · shoes · out · more
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I have had my dream--like others-- | 8 | ······/˘ |
| and it has come to nothing, so that | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| I remain now carelessly | 7 | ·˘/·/˘˘ |
| with feet planted on the ground | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| and look up at the sky-- | 6 | ······ |
| feeling my clothes about me, | 7 | /˘····· |
| the weight of my body in my shoes, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| the rim of my hat, air passing in and out | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| at my nose--and decide to dream no more. | 10 | ····˘/···· |
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.