Sad Steps

The poem comprises seven tercets (three-line stanzas). The length of the lines slightly vary. Thirteen of the lines are pentameters, meaning they contain five poetic feet. The basic rhythm is iambic: An iambic foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Line 5, for example is a pentameter: “Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky,” although it is not entirely an iambic line, since the final foot, “wind-picked sky” is a spondee, meaning that the line ends in two stressed syllables (both “picked” and “sky” are stressed). Line 7, “The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow,” is also mostly iambic pentameter, but in the third foot, “dashes,” the expected stress pattern is reversed to form a trochee: a foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. The following line, Line 8, is also an iambic pentameter with one substitution: Again, a trochee subs for an iamb. This time the substitution occurs at the beginning of the line, in the first foot: “Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart.” Line 15, “Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare” ends with a spondee, which gives extra emphasis to the perceived impersonal expression of the moon.