Analysis of Night
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
After the fret and failure of this day,
And weariness of thought, O Mother Night,
Come with soft kiss to soothe our care away
And all our little tumults set to right;
Most pitiful of all death’s kindred fair,
Riding above us through the curtained air
On thy dusk car, thou scatterest to the earth
Sweet dreams and drowsy charms of tender might
And lovers’ dear delight before to-morrow’s birth.
Thus art thou wont thy quiet lands to leave
And pillared courts beyond the Milky Way,
Wherein thou tarriest all our solar day
While unsubstantial dreams before thee weave
A foamy dance, and fluttering fancies play
About thy palace in the silver ray
Of some far, moony globe. But when the hour,
The long-expected comes, the ivory gates
Open on noiseless hinge before thy bower
Unbidden, and the jewelled chariot waits
With magic steeds. Thou from the fronting rim
Bending to urge them, whilst thy sea-dark hair
Falls in ambrosial ripples o’er each limb,
With beautiful pale arms, untrammelled, bare
For horsemanship, to those twin chargers fleet
Dost give full rein across the fires that glow
In the wide floor of heaven, from off their feet
Scattering the powdery star-dust as they go.
Come swiftly down the sky, O Lady Night,
Fall through the shadow-country, O most kind,
Shake out thy strands of gentle dreams and light
For chains, wherewith thou still art used to bind
With tenderest love of careful leeches’ art
The bruised and weary heart
In slumber blind.
Scheme | ABABCCDBDEAAEAAFGFGHCHCIJIJBKBKLLK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001010111 0100111101 11111110101 0110101111 1100111101 100111011 111111101 1101011101 01010101111 1111110111 0101010101 0111110101 1110111 01010100101 0111000101 1111111010 01010101001 1011101110 10011001 1101110101 1011111111 1001010111 11001111 1100111101 11110101011 00111101111 100010011111 1101011101 110110111 1111110101 111111111 111110101 010101 0101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,441 |
Words | 253 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 34 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,168 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 251 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 1:15 min read
- 49 Views
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