Sunset
The sun set this evening in masses of cloud,The storm comes to-morrow, then calm be the night,Then the Dawn in her chariot refulgent and proud,Then more nights, and still days, steps of Time in his flight.The days shall pass rapid as swifts on the wing.O'er the face of the hills, o'er the face of the seas,O'er streamlets of silver, and forests that ringWith a dirge for the dead, chanted low by the breeze;The face of the waters, the brow of the mountsDeep scarred but not shrivelled, and woods tufted green,Their youth shall renew; and the rocks to the fountsShall yield what these yielded to ocean their queen.But day by day bending still lower my head,Still chilled in the sunlight, soon I shall have cast,At height of the banquet, my lot with the dead,Unmissed by creation aye joyous and vast.
Words in this poem
- refulgent a.
- Casting a bright light; radiant; brilliant; resplendent; shining; splendid; as, refulgent beams. [L. refulgens, p. pr. of refulgere to flash back, to shine bright; pref. re- re- + fulgere to shine. See Fulgent.]
- 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,]
- dirge n.
- A piece of music of a mournful character, to accompany funeral rites; a funeral hymn. [Contraction of Lat. dirige, direct thou (imperative of dirigere), the first word of a funeral hymn (Lat. transl. of Psalm v. 8) beginning, "Dirige, Domine, in c]
- chilled a.
- Hardened on the surface or edge by chilling; as, chilled iron; a chilled wheel.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sunset is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, Sunset, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/sunset.html, id L26742.
Form and metre
Sunset is 16 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in anapaestic 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 ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH cloudA · nightB · proudA · flightB · wingC · seasD · ringC · breezeD · mountsE · greenF · fountsE · queenF · headG · castH · deadG · vastH
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The sun set this evening in masses of cloud, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| The storm comes to-morrow, then calm be the night, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Then the Dawn in her chariot refulgent and proud, | 12 | ·····/˘˘/˘·· |
| Then more nights, and still days, steps of Time in his flight. | 12 | ············ |
| The days shall pass rapid as swifts on the wing. | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| O'er the face of the hills, o'er the face of the seas, | 12 | ············ |
| O'er streamlets of silver, and forests that ring | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| With a dirge for the dead, chanted low by the breeze; | 12 | ······/˘···· |
| The face of the waters, the brow of the mounts | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Deep scarred but not shrivelled, and woods tufted green, | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| Their youth shall renew; and the rocks to the founts | 11 | ···˘/······ |
| Shall yield what these yielded to ocean their queen. | 10 | ····/˘·/·· |
| But day by day bending still lower my head, | 10 | ····/˘·/·· |
| Still chilled in the sunlight, soon I shall have cast, | 11 | ····/······ |
| At height of the banquet, my lot with the dead, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Unmissed by creation aye joyous and vast. | 11 | ···˘/˘·/˘·· |
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.