Day
Dawn is up at my window, and in the May-treeThe finches gossip, and tits, and beautiful sparrowsWith feathers bright and brown as September hazels.
The sunlight is here, filtered through rosy curtains,Docile and disembodied, a ghost of sunlight,A gentle light to greet the dreamer returning.
Part the curtains. I give you salutationDay, clear day; let us be friendly fellows.Come.... I hear the Liars about the city.
Words in this poem
- docile a.
- Teachable; easy to teach; docible. [L. docilis,fr. docere to teach; cf. Gr. discere to learn, Gr. docile. Cf. Doctor, Didactic, Disciple.]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- dreamer n.
- One who dreams.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Day is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, 1908-1919, Project Gutenberg ebook #51575; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Drinkwater, Day, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/day.html, id L23127.
Form and metre
Day is 9 lines in 3 stanzas of 3 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dawn is up at my window, and in the May-tree | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| The finches gossip, and tits, and beautiful sparrows | 13 | ·/˘/˘···/˘˘/˘ |
| With feathers bright and brown as September hazels. | 12 | ·/˘····˘/˘/˘ |
| The sunlight is here, filtered through rosy curtains, | 12 | ·/···/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Docile and disembodied, a ghost of sunlight, | 12 | /˘·˘˘/˘···/· |
| A gentle light to greet the dreamer returning. | 12 | ·/˘····/˘˘/˘ |
| Part the curtains. I give you salutation | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| Day, clear day; let us be friendly fellows. | 10 | ······/˘/˘ |
| Come.... I hear the Liars about the city. | 11 | ····/˘···/˘ |
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.