The Night of Death. 53
Veil not thine eyes, nor close thy lips,Nor speak with bated breath;This evil shall not always last,The end of it is death.
Avert the doom that crime must bringUpon a guilty land;Strong in the strength that God supplies,For truth and justice stand.
For Christless men, with reckless hands,Are sowing round thy pathThe tempests wild that yet shall breakIn whirlwinds of God's wrath.
Words in this poem
- bated a.
- Reduced; lowered; restrained; as, to speak with bated breath.
- 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,]
- christless a.
- Without faith in Christ; unchristian.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Night of Death. 53 is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #679; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, The Night of Death. 53, in Poems (1854–1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #679, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/harper-poems/the-night-of-death-53.html, id L10591.
Form and metre
The Night of Death. 53 is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, 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 7.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 lips · breathA · last · deathA
- 2 -A-A bring · landA · supplies · standA
- 3 -A-A hands · pathA · break · wrathA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Veil not thine eyes, nor close thy lips, | 8 | ········ |
| Nor speak with bated breath; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| This evil shall not always last, | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| The end of it is death. | 6 | ······ |
| Avert the doom that crime must bring | 8 | ˘/······ |
| Upon a guilty land; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Strong in the strength that God supplies, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| For truth and justice stand. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| For Christless men, with reckless hands, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Are sowing round thy path | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The tempests wild that yet shall break | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In whirlwinds of God's wrath. | 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.