An Autumn Evening
Dark hills against a hollow crocus skyScarfed with its crimson pennons, and belowThe dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lieCradling the twilight, where the lone winds blowAnd wake among the harps of leafless treesFantastic runes and mournful melodies.
The chilly purple air is threaded throughWith silver from the rising moon afar,And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blueIn the southwest glimmers a great gold starAbove the darkening druid glens of firWhere beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir.
And so I wander through the shadows still,And look and listen with a rapt delight,Pausing again and yet again at willTo drink the elusive beauty of the night,Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup,That with divine enchantment is brimmed up.
Words in this poem
- cradling n.
- The act of using a cradle.
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- druid n.
- One of an order of priests which in ancient times existed among certain branches of the Celtic race, especially among the Gauls and Britons. [L. Druides; of Celtic origin; cf. Ir. & Gael. draoi, druidh, magician, Druid, W. derwydd Druid.]
- elfin a.
- Relating to elves.
- rapt n.
- An ecstasy; a trance. Bp. Morton. [From F. rapt abduction, rape, L. raptus, fr. rapere to seize and carry off, to transport; or fr. E. rapt, a. See Rapt, a., and Rapid.]
- elusive a.
- Tending to elude; using arts or deception to escape; adroitly escaping or evading; eluding the grasp; fallacious.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Autumn Evening is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, An Autumn Evening, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/an-autumn-evening.html, id L29399.
Form and metre
An Autumn Evening is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 ABABCC skyA · belowB · lieA · blowB · treesC · melodiesC
- 2 ABABCC throughA · afarB · blueA · starB · firC · stirC
- 3 ABABCC stillA · delightB · willA · nightB · cupC · upC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow | 10 | /˘·/······ |
| And wake among the harps of leafless trees | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Fantastic runes and mournful melodies. | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| The chilly purple air is threaded through | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| With silver from the rising moon afar, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blue | 10 | ·········· |
| In the southwest glimmers a great gold star | 10 | ···//˘···· |
| Above the darkening druid glens of fir | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Where beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| And so I wander through the shadows still, | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| And look and listen with a rapt delight, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Pausing again and yet again at will | 10 | /˘˘/··˘/·· |
| To drink the elusive beauty of the night, | 11 | ···˘/˘/˘··· |
| Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup, | 10 | ·········· |
| That with divine enchantment is brimmed up. | 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.