Analysis of At Dawn and Dusk
At Dawn and Dusk
Love-Laurel
IN MEMORY OF HENRY KENDALL
AH! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?
For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.
The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.
. . . . .
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.
. . . . .
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.
Scheme | XAA BXCCDBCEFGGFEG HFIIFHI JIKKIJK LIMMILM EINNIEN HIBBICB EFOXFEO PIQQIPQRDCCDRC XISSIHS DTCCTDCCFUUFCU |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101 110 010011010 1111111111 111111011110 1111111111 1111010101 01111101010 1111011111 111100 1111110111 11011101110 11110110101 111101111 01111101110 1111011101 011101 1101111111 10011111110 1101010111 11111111 10110111110 1111110111 110111 1111011111 11110101010 1101011111 1101110111 1110111010 0101110111 111101 110101011 11110110010 1101101010 11011111010 11011111110 111110011 1111010 1011011111 111111110110 1111111111 1011010111 11110111010 1101111101 110111 1111111100 11110111010 1101111111 11110110101 1011111110 1101010101 01001 0111111101 01110111110 1101111101 1101111101 01000111110 0111111111 111101 1 1111111111 01110111010 1101111101 01111110111 01110101110 110101001 110011 01110011101 11111101010 1011011101 1111111111 11111101010 0101010111 11111 0111111101 11101111110 1101111111 1111111101 11110111010 1011010101 011101 1 1011110111 1111011010 1111001111 1111111111 1101101110 01010110101 010101 111110111 11111111010 1001111101 0111111111 11111111010 1111010101 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,134 |
Words | 758 |
Sentences | 46 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 14, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 15, 7, 15 |
Lines Amount | 96 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 285 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 72 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:47 min read
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