The Night Cometh
Cometh the night. The wind falls low,The trees swing slowly to and fro:Around the church the headstones greyCluster, like children strayed awayBut found again, and folded so.
No chiding look doth she bestow:If she is glad, they cannot know;If ill or well they spend their day,Cometh the night.
Singing or sad, intent they go;They do not see the shadows grow;"There yet is time," they lightly say,"Before our work aside we lay";Their task is but half-done, and lo!Cometh the night.
About this text
The Night Cometh is in the public domain. This text is taken from In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John McCrae, The Night Cometh, in In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mccrae-flanders/the-night-cometh.html, id L17058.
Form and metre
The Night Cometh is 15 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 13% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 · froA · greyB · awayB · soA
- 2 AA-- bestowA · knowA · day · night
- 3 AABBA- goA · growA · sayB · layB · loA · night
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Cometh the night. The wind falls low, | 8 | /˘······ |
| The trees swing slowly to and fro: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Around the church the headstones grey | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Cluster, like children strayed away | 9 | /˘·/˘·˘˘/ |
| But found again, and folded so. | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| No chiding look doth she bestow: | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| If she is glad, they cannot know; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| If ill or well they spend their day, | 8 | ········ |
| Cometh the night. | 4 | /˘·· |
| Singing or sad, intent they go; | 8 | /˘··˘/·· |
| They do not see the shadows grow; | 8 | ·····/·· |
| "There yet is time," they lightly say, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| "Before our work aside we lay"; | 9 | ··/˘·˘/·· |
| Their task is but half-done, and lo! | 8 | ········ |
| Cometh the night. | 4 | /˘·· |
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.