Mother Night
Eternities before the first-born day,Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,A brooding mother over chaos lay.And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay,Shall run their fiery courses and then claimThe haven of the darkness whence they came;Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way.
So when my feeble sun of life burns out,And sounded is the hour for my long sleep,I shall, full weary of the feverish light,Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt,And heavy-lidded, I shall softly creepInto the quiet bosom of the Night.
Words in this poem
- chaos n.
- An empty, immeasurable space; a yawning chasm. [L. chaos chaos (in senses 1 & 2), Gr. Chasm.]
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mother Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Fifty Years, & Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #17884; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: James Weldon Johnson, Mother Night, in Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17884, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-fifty-years/mother-night.html, id L08297.
Form and metre
Mother Night is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABBAABBA dayA · flameB · sameB · layA · decayA · claimB · cameB · wayA
- 2 ABCABC outA · sleepB · lightC · doubtA · creepB · nightC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Eternities before the first-born day, | 10 | ˘/˘˘······ |
| Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame, | 10 | ·········· |
| Calm Night, the everlasting and the same, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| A brooding mother over chaos lay. | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Shall run their fiery courses and then claim | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The haven of the darkness whence they came; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way. | 10 | ·········· |
| So when my feeble sun of life burns out, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And sounded is the hour for my long sleep, | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| I shall, full weary of the feverish light, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| And heavy-lidded, I shall softly creep | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Into the quiet bosom of the Night. | 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.