In the Night
Cruel? I think there never was a cheatingMore cruel, thro’ all the weary days than this!This is no dream, my heart kept on repeating,But sober certainty of waking bliss.
Dreams? O, I know their faces--goodly seeming,Vaporous, whirled on many-coloured wings;I have had dreams before, this is no dreaming,But daylight gladness that the daylight brings.
What ails my love; what ails her? She is paling;Faint grows her face, and slowly seems to fade!I cannot clasp her--stretch out unavailingMy arms across the silence and the shade.
Words in this poem
- 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.
- paling n.
- Pales, in general; a fence formed with pales or pickets; a limit; an inclosure.
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 A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #56974; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Levy, In the Night, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/in-the-night.html, id L21539.
Form and metre
In the Night is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 ABAB cheatingA · thisB · repeatingA · blissB
- 2 ABAB seemingA · wingsB · dreamingA · bringsB
- 3 ABAB palingA · fadeB · unavailingA · shadeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cruel? I think there never was a cheating | 11 | /˘···/˘··/˘ |
| More cruel, thro’ all the weary days than this! | 11 | ·/˘···/˘··· |
| This is no dream, my heart kept on repeating, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| But sober certainty of waking bliss. | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘·/˘· |
| Dreams? O, I know their faces--goodly seeming, | 11 | ·····/˘/˘/˘ |
| Vaporous, whirled on many-coloured wings; | 11 | /˘˘·˘·/˘/˘· |
| I have had dreams before, this is no dreaming, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| But daylight gladness that the daylight brings. | 10 | ·/·/˘··/·· |
| What ails my love; what ails her? She is paling; | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Faint grows her face, and slowly seems to fade! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I cannot clasp her--stretch out unavailing | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| My arms across the silence and the shade. | 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.