Night, Dim Night
Night, dim night, and it rains, my love, it rains,(Art thou dreaming of me, I wonder)The trees are sad, and the wind complains,Outside the rolling of the thunder,And the beat against the panes.
Heart, my heart, thou art mournful in the rain,(Are thy redolent lips a-quiver?)My soul seeks thine, doth it seek in vain?My love goes surging like a river,Shall its tide bear naught save pain?
Words in this poem
- redolent a.
- Diffusing odor or fragrance; spreading sweet scent; scented; odorous; smelling; -- usually followed by of. [L. redolens, -entis, p. pr. of redolere to emit a scent, diffuse an odor; pref. red-, re-, re- + olere to emit a smell. See Odor.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Night, Dim Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Night, Dim Night, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/night-dim-night.html, id L00800.
Form and metre
Night, Dim Night is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABA. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in trochaic pentameter.
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 ABABA rainsA · wonderB · complainsA · thunderB · panesA
- 2 ABABA rainA · quiverB · vainA · riverB · painA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Night, dim night, and it rains, my love, it rains, | 10 | ·········· |
| (Art thou dreaming of me, I wonder) | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| The trees are sad, and the wind complains, | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| Outside the rolling of the thunder, | 9 | //·/˘··/˘ |
| And the beat against the panes. | 7 | ······· |
| Heart, my heart, thou art mournful in the rain, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| (Are thy redolent lips a-quiver?) | 9 | ··/˘˘··/˘ |
| My soul seeks thine, doth it seek in vain? | 9 | ········· |
| My love goes surging like a river, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Shall its tide bear naught save pain? | 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.