Winter Trees
All the complicated detailsof the attiring andthe disattiring are completed!A liquid moonmoves gently amongthe long branches.Thus having prepared their budsagainst a sure winterthe wise treesstand sleeping in the cold.
About this text
Winter Trees 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, Winter Trees, in Sour Grapes (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #35667, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-sour-grapes/winter-trees.html, id L01159.
Form and metre
Winter Trees is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.9 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 70% 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- details · and · completed · moon · among · branchesA · buds · winter · treesA · cold
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All the complicated details | 8 | ··/˘·˘˘/ |
| of the attiring and | 7 | ··˘/˘˘· |
| the disattiring are completed! | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| A liquid moon | 4 | ·/˘· |
| moves gently among | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| the long branches. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Thus having prepared their buds | 7 | ·/˘˘/·· |
| against a sure winter | 6 | ····/˘ |
| the wise trees | 3 | ··· |
| stand sleeping in the cold. | 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.