Analysis of An Evening
Dora Wilcox 1873 (Christchurch) – 1953 (Neutral Bay)
TO break the stillness of the hour
There is no sound, no voice, no stir;
Only the croak of frogs,—the whirr
Of crickets hidden in leaf and flower.
The clear-cut outlines of a spire
Spring from a mass of eucalypt
Sharply against the sky,—still tipped
With one last gleam of lingering fire.
So solemnly the shadows creep;
On dovelike wings Night flutters down;
Lights twinkle in the little town;
The valley lies in quiet sleep.
So comes the dark, so fades the light,
On all those leagues of tossing sea
That lie between my home and me,
And glimmer to the stars all night.
And so, belovèd, silently
In thine own land the shadows fall
On grassy lawn, and garden-wall,
On shining sand, and troubled sea,—
On paths thy feet shall never tread,—
On fields thine eyes shall never see,—
And on thy new home, strange to me,
That silent City of the Dead!
Yea, stillness rests, O Tried and True,
On hand and heart, on lips and eyes!
On thee eternal silence lies,
On thee is utter darkness too.
We lost too much in losing thee,
Yet we who knew and loved thee best,
Wish thee an everlasting rest,
Night came on thee so quietly.
Peace with the Shadows! Peace to all
Who work and weep, who pray and wait;
Till we and thou are one with Fate,
And on us too, the Night shall fall!
Scheme | AAAA XBBA CDDC BEEB EFFE BEEB XGGB EBBE FBBF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (89%) |
Metre | 110101010 11111111 10011101 1101001010 0111101 110111 10010111 1111110010 1100011 1111101 11000101 01010101 11011101 11111101 11011101 01010111 01101100 0111011 11010101 11010101 11111101 11111101 01111111 11010101 11011101 11011101 11010101 11110101 11110101 11110111 1110101 11111100 1101111 11011101 11011111 01110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,396 |
Words | 244 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 108 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 84 Views
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"An Evening" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8098/an-evening>.
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