The Coming of Night
How the old mountains drip with sunset,And the brake of dun!How the hemlocks are tipped in tinselBy the wizard sun!
How the old steeples hand the scarlet,Till the ball is full, --Have I the lip of the flamingoThat I dare to tell?
Then, how the fire ebbs like billows,Touching all the grassWith a departing, sapphire feature,As if a duchess pass!
How a small dusk crawls on the villageTill the houses blot;And the odd flambeaux no men carryGlimmer on the spot!
Now it is night in nest and kennel,And where was the wood,Just a dome of abyss is noddingInto solitude! --
These are the visions baffled Guido;Titian never told;Domenichino dropped the pencil,Powerless to unfold.
Words in this poem
- drip v. i.
- To fall in drops; as, water drips from the eaves. [Akin to LG. drippen, Dan. dryppe, from a noun. See Drop.]
- duchess n.
- The wife or widow of a duke; also, a lady who has the sovereignty of a duchy in her own right. [F. duchesse, fr. duc duke.]
- kennel n.
- The water course of a street; a little canal or channel; a gutter; also, a puddle. Bp. Hall. [See Channel, Canal.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Coming of Night 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, The Coming of Night, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/the-coming-of-night.html, id L03802.
Form and metre
The Coming of Night is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 11 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 sunset · dunA · tinsel · sunA
- 3 -A-A billows · grassA · feature · passA
- 4 -A-A village · blotA · carry · spotA
- 6 -A-A guido · toldA · pencil · unfoldA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| How the old mountains drip with sunset, | 9 | ···/˘··/· |
| And the brake of dun! | 5 | ····· |
| How the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel | 9 | ··/····/˘ |
| By the wizard sun! | 5 | ··/˘· |
| How the old steeples hand the scarlet, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Till the ball is full, -- | 5 | ····· |
| Have I the lip of the flamingo | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| That I dare to tell? | 5 | ····· |
| Then, how the fire ebbs like billows, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Touching all the grass | 5 | /˘··· |
| With a departing, sapphire feature, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| As if a duchess pass! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| How a small dusk crawls on the village | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Till the houses blot; | 5 | ··/˘· |
| And the odd flambeaux no men carry | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Glimmer on the spot! | 5 | /˘··· |
| Now it is night in nest and kennel, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And where was the wood, | 5 | ····· |
| Just a dome of abyss is nodding | 9 | ····˘/·/˘ |
| Into solitude! -- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| These are the visions baffled Guido; | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| Titian never told; | 5 | /˘/˘· |
| Domenichino dropped the pencil, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Powerless to unfold. | 6 | /˘˘·˘/ |
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.