Alushta by Night
The drooping, weary day night pushed aside;On Tschatir Dagh the sullen sun and lowPaints phantom purple upon ancient snow;While forest ways within, the wanderers hide.Night veils the mountains and the valleys wide;The thunderous brooks are dream-held, dulled, and slow;Beneath the blackness fragrant flowers blowAnd rich leaf-music clothes each valley side.
Almost my waking eyes are dream-held too;With gold a meteor marks the deep-domed skyAnd fountain-like the fiery sparks float by.Oh! Beauty of the Eastern Night, you wooMy spirit like the odalisque, who heldMen captive till her kiss the dream dispelled!
Words in this poem
- sullen a.
- Lonely; solitary; desolate. Wyclif (Job iii. 14). [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.]
- thunderous a.
- Producing thunder. [Written also thundrous.]
- odalisque n.
- A female slave or concubine in the harem of the Turkish sultan. [F., fr. Turk. odaliq chambermaid, fr. oda chamber, room.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Alushta by Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets from the Crimea, Project Gutenberg ebook #27069, the Edna Worthley Underwood translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Adam Mickiewicz, Alushta by Night, in Sonnets from the Crimea (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #27069, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mickiewicz-crimea/alushta-by-night.html, id L15537.
Form and metre
Alushta by Night is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 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 asideA · lowB · snowB · hideA · wideA · slowB · blowB · sideA
- 2 ABBACC tooA · skyB · byB · wooA · heldC · dispelledC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The drooping, weary day night pushed aside; | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| On Tschatir Dagh the sullen sun and low | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Paints phantom purple upon ancient snow; | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| While forest ways within, the wanderers hide. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Night veils the mountains and the valleys wide; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The thunderous brooks are dream-held, dulled, and slow; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Beneath the blackness fragrant flowers blow | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| And rich leaf-music clothes each valley side. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Almost my waking eyes are dream-held too; | 10 | /··/˘····· |
| With gold a meteor marks the deep-domed sky | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And fountain-like the fiery sparks float by. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Oh! Beauty of the Eastern Night, you woo | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| My spirit like the odalisque, who held | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Men captive till her kiss the dream dispelled! | 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.