Sunset
The river sleeps beneath the sky,And clasps the shadows to its breast;The crescent moon shines dim on high;And in the lately radiant westThe gold is fading into gray.Now stills the lark his festive lay,And mourns with me the dying day.
While in the south the first faint starLifts to the night its silver face,And twinkles to the moon afarAcross the heaven's graying space,Low murmurs reach me from the town,As Day puts on her sombre crown,And shakes her mantle darkly down.
Words in this poem
- fading n.
- An Irish dance; also, the burden of a song.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- sombre n.
- Gloom; obscurity; duskiness; somberness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sunset 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, Sunset, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/sunset.html, id L00489.
Form and metre
Sunset is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCCC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 21% 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 ABABCCC skyA · breastB · highA · westB · grayC · layC · dayC
- 2 ABABCCC starA · faceB · afarA · spaceB · townC · crownC · downC
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 river sleeps beneath the sky, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And clasps the shadows to its breast; | 8 | ···/···· |
| The crescent moon shines dim on high; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And in the lately radiant west | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The gold is fading into gray. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Now stills the lark his festive lay, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And mourns with me the dying day. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| While in the south the first faint star | 8 | ········ |
| Lifts to the night its silver face, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And twinkles to the moon afar | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Across the heaven's graying space, | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| Low murmurs reach me from the town, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As Day puts on her sombre crown, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And shakes her mantle darkly down. | 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.