Grey Evening

D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) · 1916

iambic pentameter · ABAB · 20 lines · from Amores

WHEN you went, how was it you carried with youMy missal book of fine, flamboyant hours?My book of turrets and of red-thorn bowers,And skies of gold, and ladies in bright tissue?

Now underneath a blue-grey twilight, heapedBeyond the withering snow of the shorn fieldsStands rubble of stunted houses; all is reapedAnd garnered that the golden daylight yields.

Dim lamps like yellow poppies glimmer amongThe shadowy stubble of the under-dusk,As farther off the scythe of night is swung,And little stars come rolling from their husk.

And all the earth is gone into a dustOf greyness mingled with a fume of gold,Covered with aged lichens, pale with must,And all the sky has withered and gone cold.

And so I sit and scan the book of grey,Feeling the shadows like a blind man reading,All fearful lest I find the last words bleedingWith wounds of sunset and the dying day.

Words in this poem

went n.: Course; way; path; journey; direction.
missal n.: The book containing the service of the Mass for the entire year; a Mass book. [LL. missale, liber missalis, from missa mass: cf. F. missel. See 1st Mass.]
flamboyant a.: Characterized by waving or flamelike curves, as in the tracery of windows, etc.; -- said of the later (15th century) French Gothic style. [F.]
withering a.: Tending to wither; causing to shrink or fade.
rubble n.: Water-worn or rough broken stones; broken bricks, etc., used in coarse masonry, or to fill up between the facing courses of walls. [From an assumed Old French dim. of robe See Rubbish.]
daylight n.: The light of day as opposed to the darkness of night; the light of the sun, as opposed to that of the moon or to artificial light.
fume n.: Exhalation; volatile matter (esp. noxious vapor or smoke) ascending in a dense body; smoke; vapor; reek; as, the fumes of tobacco. [L. fumus; akin to Skr. dh smoke, dh to shake, fan a flame, cf. Gr. fum smoke, F. fumée. Cf. Dust, n., Femerell, Thyme.]
scan v. t.: To mount by steps; to go through with step by step. [L. scandere, scansum, to climb, to scan, akin to Skr. skand to spring, leap: cf. F. scander. Cf. Ascend, Descend, Scale a ladder.]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Grey Evening is in the public domain. This text is taken from Amores: Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22531; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: D. H. Lawrence, Grey Evening, in Amores (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22531, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lawrence-amores/grey-evening.html, id L13599.

Form and metre

Grey Evening is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.4 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 35% 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 ABBA you^A · hours^B · bowers^B · tissue^A
2 ABAB heaped^A · fields^B · reaped^A · yields^B
3 ABAB among^A · dusk^B · swung^A · husk^B
4 ABAB dust^A · gold^B · must^A · cold^B
5 ABBA grey^A · reading^B · bleeding^B · day^A

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
WHEN you went, how was it you carried with you	11	·······/˘··
My missal book of fine, flamboyant hours?	11	·/˘···˘/˘/˘
My book of turrets and of red-thorn bowers,	11	···/˘····/˘
And skies of gold, and ladies in bright tissue?	11	·····/˘··/·
Now underneath a blue-grey twilight, heaped	10	··˘/···/··
Beyond the withering snow of the shorn fields	10	···/˘·····
Stands rubble of stunted houses; all is reaped	11	·/˘·/˘/˘···
And garnered that the golden daylight yields.	10	·/˘··/˘/··
Dim lamps like yellow poppies glimmer among	11	···/˘/˘/˘··
The shadowy stubble of the under-dusk,	10	·/˘/˘·····
As farther off the scythe of night is swung,	10	·/˘·······
And little stars come rolling from their husk.	10	·/˘··/˘···
And all the earth is gone into a dust	10	··········
Of greyness mingled with a fume of gold,	10	···/˘·····
Covered with aged lichens, pale with must,	10	/˘˘··/˘···
And all the sky has withered and gone cold.	10	·····/˘···
And so I sit and scan the book of grey,	10	··········
Feeling the shadows like a blind man reading,	11	/˘·/·····/˘
All fearful lest I find the last words bleeding	11	·/˘······/˘
With wounds of sunset and the dying day.	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.

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