The Dead Day
The west builds high a sepulcherOf cloudy granite and of gold,Where twilight's priestly hours interThe Day like some great king of old.
A censer, rimmed with silver fire,The new moon swings above his tomb;While, organ-stops of God's own choir,Star after star throbs in the gloom.
And Night draws near, the sadly sweet--A nun whose face is calm and fair--And kneeling at the dead Day's feetHer soul goes up in mists like prayer.
In prayer, we feel through dewy gleamAnd flowery fragrance, and--aboveAll earth--the ecstasy and dreamThat haunt the mystic heart of love.
Words in this poem
- censer n.
- A vessel for perfumes; esp. one in which incense is burned. [For incenser, fr. OF. encensier, F. encensoir, fr. LL. incensarium, incensorium, fr. L. incensum incense. See Incense, and cf. Incensory.]
- sadly adv.
- Wearily; heavily; firmly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Dead Day is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #7796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Madison Julius Cawein, The Dead Day, in Poems (1911), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cawein-poems/the-dead-day.html, id L10929.
Form and metre
The Dead Day is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A sepulcher · goldA · inter · oldA
- 2 ABAB fireA · tombB · choirA · gloomB
- 3 ABAB sweetA · fairB · feetA · prayerB
- 4 ABAB gleamA · aboveB · dreamA · loveB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The west builds high a sepulcher | 8 | ········ |
| Of cloudy granite and of gold, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Where twilight's priestly hours inter | 8 | ·/·/˘/˘/ |
| The Day like some great king of old. | 8 | ········ |
| A censer, rimmed with silver fire, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| The new moon swings above his tomb; | 8 | ········ |
| While, organ-stops of God's own choir, | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Star after star throbs in the gloom. | 8 | ········ |
| And Night draws near, the sadly sweet-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A nun whose face is calm and fair-- | 8 | ········ |
| And kneeling at the dead Day's feet | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Her soul goes up in mists like prayer. | 8 | ········ |
| In prayer, we feel through dewy gleam | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And flowery fragrance, and--above | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| All earth--the ecstasy and dream | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| That haunt the mystic heart of love. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.