Night-Piece
Now independent, beautiful and proud,Out of the vanishing body of a cloudLike its arisen soul the full moon swimsOver the sea, into whose distant brimsHas flowed the last of the light. I am alone.Even the diving gannet now is flownFrom these unpeopled sands. A mist lies coldUpon the muffled boundaries of the world.The lovely earth whose silence is so deepIs folded up in night, but not in sleep.
Words in this poem
- gannet n.
- One of several species of sea birds of the genus Sula, allied to the pelicans. [OE. gant, AS. ganet, ganot, a sea fowl, a fen duck; akin to D. gent gander, OHG. ganazzo. See Gander, Goose.]
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Night-Piece is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #56244; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eleanor Farjeon, Night-Piece, in Sonnets and Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56244, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/farjeon-sonnets-poems/night-piece.html, id L21984.
Form and metre
Night-Piece is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCC--DD proudA · cloudA · swimsB · brimsB · aloneC · flownC · cold · world · deepD · sleepD
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Now independent, beautiful and proud, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘˘·· |
| Out of the vanishing body of a cloud | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Like its arisen soul the full moon swims | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Over the sea, into whose distant brims | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Has flowed the last of the light. I am alone. | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| Even the diving gannet now is flown | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| From these unpeopled sands. A mist lies cold | 10 | ····˘····· |
| Upon the muffled boundaries of the world. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The lovely earth whose silence is so deep | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Is folded up in night, but not in sleep. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
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.