Dawn
When night is almost done,And sunrise grows so nearThat we can touch the spaces,It 's time to smooth the hair
And get the dimples ready,And wonder we could careFor that old faded midnightThat frightened but an hour.
About this text
Dawn is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, Dawn, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/dawn.html, id L03579.
Form and metre
Dawn is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 done · nearA · spaces · hairA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When night is almost done, | 6 | ···/·· |
| And sunrise grows so near | 6 | ·/···· |
| That we can touch the spaces, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| It 's time to smooth the hair | 7 | ······· |
| And get the dimples ready, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And wonder we could care | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| For that old faded midnight | 7 | ···/˘/· |
| That frightened but an hour. | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
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.