Sundown
The summer sun is sinking low;Only the tree-tops redden and glow:Only the weathercock on the spireOf the neighboring church is a flame of fire;All is in shadow below.
O beautiful, awful summer day,What hast thou given, what taken away?Life and death, and love and hate,Homes made happy or desolate,Hearts made sad or gay!
On the road of life one mile-stone more!In the book of life one leaf turned o'er!Like a red seal is the setting sunOn the good and the evil men have done,--Naught can to-day restore!
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sundown 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, Sundown, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/sundown.html, id L17834.
Form and metre
Sundown is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas; the stanza is the Limerick. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 72%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 13% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other limericks, other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
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 AABBA lowA · glowA · spireB · fireB · belowA
- 2 AABBA dayA · awayA · hateB · desolateB · gayA
- 3 A-BBA moreA · o'er · sunB · doneB · restoreA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The summer sun is sinking low; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Only the tree-tops redden and glow: | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| Only the weathercock on the spire | 9 | /˘·/˘˘··· |
| Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire; | 10 | ··/˘·····/ |
| All is in shadow below. | 7 | ···/··· |
| O beautiful, awful summer day, | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘/˘· |
| What hast thou given, what taken away? | 10 | ···/˘·/˘˘/ |
| Life and death, and love and hate, | 7 | ······· |
| Homes made happy or desolate, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘˘ |
| Hearts made sad or gay! | 5 | ····· |
| On the road of life one mile-stone more! | 9 | ········· |
| In the book of life one leaf turned o'er! | 10 | ········˘· |
| Like a red seal is the setting sun | 9 | ······/˘· |
| On the good and the evil men have done,-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Naught can to-day restore! | 6 | ····˘/ |
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.