In the Night
Let us go in: the air is dank and chillWith dewy midnight, and the moon rides highO'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill.
This hour the dawn seems farthest from the skySo weary long the space that lies betweenThat sacred joy and this dark mystery
Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen,In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day,Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been.
Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors swayThe brooding soul, that hungers for her rest,Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay,
With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed.The mystery and the shadow wax too deep;She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep.
Words in this poem
- dank n.
- Moisture; humidity; water.
- ghostly a.
- Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual; as, a ghostly confessor. [OE. gastlich, gostlich, AS. gastlic. See Ghost.]
- nameless a.
- Without a name; not having been given a name; as, a nameless star.
- merge v. t.
- To cause to be swallowed up; to immerse; to sink; to absorb. [L. mergere, mersum. Cf. Emerge, Immerse, Marrow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In the Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 1, Project Gutenberg ebook #3295; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emma Lazarus, In the Night, in Admetus, and Other Poems (1867–1887), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3295, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lazarus-poems/in-the-night.html, id L01892.
Form and metre
In the Night is 15 lines in 5 stanzas of 3 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 40% 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 ABA chillA · highB · hillA
- 2 BC- skyB · betweenC · mystery
- 3 CD- seenC · dayD · been
- 4 DED swayD · restE · delayD
- 5 EFF oppressedE · deepF · sleepF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Let us go in: the air is dank and chill | 10 | ·········· |
| With dewy midnight, and the moon rides high | 10 | ·/˘/······ |
| O'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| This hour the dawn seems farthest from the sky | 10 | ·/···/˘··· |
| So weary long the space that lies between | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| That sacred joy and this dark mystery | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen, | 10 | ···/·/˘˘·· |
| In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors sway | 10 | ··˘/·/˘/˘· |
| The brooding soul, that hungers for her rest, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed. | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| The mystery and the shadow wax too deep; | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep. | 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.