A Sun-Day Hymn
LORD of all being! throned afar,Thy glory flames from sun and star;Centre and soul of every sphere,Yet to each loving heart how near!
Sun of our life, thy quickening raySheds on our path the glow of day;Star of our hope, thy softened lightCheers the long watches of the night.
Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn;Our noontide is thy gracious dawn;Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign;All, save the clouds of sin, are thin!
Lord of all life, below, above,Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love,Before thy ever-blazing throneWe ask no lustre of our own.
Grant us thy truth to make us free,And kindling hearts that burn for thee,Till all thy living altars claimOne holy light, one heavenly flame!
Words in this poem
- 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.]
- centre v. i.
- To be placed in a center; to be central.
- quickening n.
- The act or process of making or of becoming quick.
- noontide n.
- The time of noon; midday. [From noon + tide time; cf. AS. n the ninth hour.]
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Sun-Day Hymn is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Volume 06 Poems from the Breakfast Table Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #7393; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Oliver Wendell Holmes, A Sun-Day Hymn, in Poems from the Breakfast-Table Series (1858), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7393, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/holmes-breakfast-table-poems/a-sun-day-hymn.html, id L23573.
Form and metre
A Sun-Day Hymn is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 AABB afarA · starA · sphereB · nearB
- 2 AABB rayA · dayA · lightB · nightB
- 3 AA-- withdrawnA · dawnA · sign · thin
- 4 AABB aboveA · loveA · throneB · ownB
- 5 AABB freeA · theeA · claimB · flameB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| LORD of all being! throned afar, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Thy glory flames from sun and star; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Centre and soul of every sphere, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Yet to each loving heart how near! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Sun of our life, thy quickening ray | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| Sheds on our path the glow of day; | 8 | ··/····· |
| Star of our hope, thy softened light | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| Cheers the long watches of the night. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; | 8 | //····˘/ |
| Our noontide is thy gracious dawn; | 8 | //˘··/˘· |
| Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign; | 8 | //···/˘· |
| All, save the clouds of sin, are thin! | 8 | ········ |
| Lord of all life, below, above, | 8 | ········ |
| Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, | 8 | ········ |
| Before thy ever-blazing throne | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| We ask no lustre of our own. | 8 | ···/˘·/· |
| Grant us thy truth to make us free, | 8 | ········ |
| And kindling hearts that burn for thee, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Till all thy living altars claim | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| One holy light, one heavenly flame! | 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.