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May 24, 2017 · Weather is a perennial theme of poetry, and not just nice weather: more violent and extreme weather, such as storms, thunder, and lightning, has produced some classic poems, as this list of the best storm poems aims to highlight. 1. Sir Thomas Wyatt, ‘Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides Circumdederunt me inimici mei’.
Throughout history, storms have captivated the imaginations of poets, serving as a powerful metaphor for the human experience. From Blake's awe-inspiring tiger to Heaney's island community bracing against the storm, these poems offer glimpses into the raw beauty and destructive power of nature.
Poets use vivid imagery to illustrate the power of storms, evoking feelings of awe and respect for nature’s might. Beyond the literal portrayal, poems about storms often employ them metaphorically to symbolize personal struggles, internal turmoil, or life’s challenges.
Structurally, the poem contrasts the speaker's past and present experiences of storms. The opening stanzas evoke a sense of youthful exuberance, as the speaker embraced the exhilarating force of the winds.
- Summary
- Meaning
- Form, Rhyme Scheme, & Meter
- Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
- Line-By-Line Analysis & Explanation
- Themes
- Imagery
- Historical Context
- External Resources
The poem “Windy Nights” refers to a universal image of nature before the storm. Stevenson describes how the night sky gets covered with clouds, hiding the moon and stars. When the wind blows fast along with incessant rain, the poetic persona (representing a child) can hear a man riding by. He rages with his horse against the darkness of the night. ...
The title of the poem “Windy Nights” is a reference to the main idea of the poem. Through the title, Stevenson gives a hint of the subject matter. It is about a stormy night scene. However, it does not help readers to dive deeper into the text. For understanding the overall meaning, one has to dive deeper into lines. When they do so, they can find ...
Form
“Windy Nights” is a children’s poem that consists of two stanzas. Each stanza contains six lines. It is written from the perspective of a child who details the night scene. The sing-song-like structure of the poem makes it an example of a lyric.
Rhyme Scheme
This poem contains a regular rhyme scheme. In the first stanza, the first four lines contain the alternative ABAB rhyme scheme. The rest of the lines form a rhyming couplet. So, the overall rhyme scheme is ABABCC. For example, in the first four lines “set” and “wet”, and “high” and “sky” rhyme together. While the last two lines end with a different rhyming pair “out” and “about”. This scheme is followed in the next stanza. The rhyming of the last two lines is a bit irregular as here Stevenson...
Meter
The overall poem is composed of the iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter alternatively. It means each line either consists of four or three iambic (unstressed-stressed) beats. There are a few variations as well. Let’s have a look at the scansion of the first stanza in order to understand how the lines should be read and stressed.
In Stevenson’s “Windy Nights”, the following poetic devices can be found: 1. Anaphora:It occurs in the first two lines. Both of these lines begin with the word “Whenever”. It also occurs in the last four lines. 2. Personification:Stevenson personifies the stormy wind. He invests with the idea of riding a horse. It also occurs in “Whenever the trees...
Lines 1-6
The title of the poem “Windy Nights” sets the tone and mood at the very onset. It creates a sense of mystery and fear in readers’ minds. There is also a sense of uncertainty at the very beginning. However, the poem begins with an image familiar to the audience. It describes how the gloomy clouds cover the sky just before the storm. Stevenson compares this scene to that of the sunset. His persona thinks as if the moon and stars are set like the sun. But, they are still there just behind the cl...
Lines 7-12
In the second stanza, Stevenson describes how the ferocious creates havoc in nature. It seems to the speaker as if the storm makes the trees afraid. They start crying aloud whenever the storm comes. Here, the poet compares the sound originating from the haphazard movement of trees to crying. The storm makes the sea restless, resulting in the tossing of ships. In this way, the poet creates a tense and tremulous mood inside the text. The horse rider does not fear such a restlessness in nature....
Stevenson’s “Windy Nights” taps on the themes of childhood imagination, fantasy, nature, and mystery. The poem begins with the theme of nature. Steven beautifully describes a stormy night scene. The appearance of a storm alongside its heavy sound creates a sense of mystery. Stevenson’s persona, who represents a child, imagines the storm to be a man...
Stevenson makes use of the following types of images in this poem. 1. Visual Imagery:The poem begins with a visual image of the night sky and how it gets covered by storm clouds. 2. Auditory Imagery:The poet uses this imagery in the usage of words “gallop” and “crying”. The first word is used to convey the sound of the storm and the second one reso...
The poem “Windy Nights” was first published in Robert Louis Stevenson’s collection of poetry, A Child’s Garden of Verses. This collection of 64 poems was published in 1885. It is written from the point of view of a child. Stevenson dedicated this book of poetry to his childhood nurse, Alison Cunningham. A children’s book of 1880 inspired him to wri...
Full Text of A Child’s Garden of Verse: Selected Poems— Read the full text of some more poems from Stevenson’s book of poetry.About A Child’s Garden of Verses— Explore more about the poetry collection and the adaptations of the poems published in it.- 2 min
Feb 18, 2016 · Here are ten of the very best poems about rain and stormy weather. 1. ‘ Westron Wynde ‘. This song (‘Western Wind’) dates from the early sixteenth century, and the tune to which it was sung influenced a raft of English composers such as the Tudor John Taverner (not to be confused with John Tavener). However, the words to the song may be ...
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The poem, ‘Storm on the Island’ by Seamus Heaney, describes how an islander or the islanders lives or live their lives on an island that is frequently hit by fierce and ravaging storms. Discover more poetry from Seamus Heaney.
