Night
Into the darkness and the hush of nightSlowly the landscape sinks, and fades away,And with it fade the phantoms of the day,The ghosts of men and things, that haunt the light,The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight,The unprofitable splendor and display,The agitations, and the cares that preyUpon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.The better life begins; the world no moreMolests us; all its records we eraseFrom the dull common-place book of our lives,That like a palimpsest is written o'erWith trivial incidents of time and place,And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives.
Words in this poem
- palimpsest n.
- A parchment which has been written upon twice, the first writing having been erased to make place for the second. [L. palimpsestus, Gr. palimpseste.]
- trivial a.
- Found anywhere; common. [L. trivialis, properly, that is in, or belongs to, the crossroads or public streets; hence, that may be found everywhere, common, fr. trivium a place where thre]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Night, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/night.html, id L17812.
Form and metre
Night is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 36% 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-CD-CD nightA · awayB · dayB · lightA · flightA · displayB · preyB · sightA · more · eraseC · livesD · o'er · placeC · revivesD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Into the darkness and the hush of night | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away, | 10 | /˘·/····˘/ |
| And with it fade the phantoms of the day, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The ghosts of men and things, that haunt the light, | 10 | ·········· |
| The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| The unprofitable splendor and display, | 10 | ·˘/˘˘/˘·˘/ |
| The agitations, and the cares that prey | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight. | 10 | ··/··/˘··· |
| The better life begins; the world no more | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Molests us; all its records we erase | 10 | ˘/···/˘·˘/ |
| From the dull common-place book of our lives, | 10 | ···/˘···/· |
| That like a palimpsest is written o'er | 10 | ···/˘˘·/˘· |
| With trivial incidents of time and place, | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘···· |
| And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives. | 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.