Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand
Twilight and I went hand in hand,As lovers walk in shining Mays,O'er musky, memory-haunted ways,Across a lonely harvest-land,Where west winds chanted in the wheatAn old, old vesper wondrous sweet.
Oh, Twilight was a comrade rareFor gypsy heath or templed grove,In her gray vesture, shadow-wove;I saw the darkness of her hairFaint-mirrored in a field-pool dim,As we stood tip-toe on its rim.
We went as lightly as on wingsThrough many a scented chamber fair,Among the pines and balsams, whereI could have dreamed of darling things,And ever as we went I knewThe peeping fairy folk went too.
I could have lingered now and thenBy gates of moonrise that might leadTo some forgotten, spiceried mead,Or in some mossy, cloistered glen,Where silence, very still and deep,Seemed fallen in enchanted sleep.
But Twilight ever led me on,As lovers walk, until we cameTo hills where sunset's shaken flameHad paled to ashes dead and wan;And there, with footsteps stolen-lightShe left me to the lure of night.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- haunted a.
- Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost.
- vesper n.
- The evening star; Hesper; Venus, when seen after sunset; hence, the evening. [L., the evening, the evening star, the west; akin to Gr. west. Cf. Hesperian, Vespers.]
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
- templed a.
- Supplied with a temple or temples, or with churches; inclosed in a temple.
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- moonrise n.
- The rising of the moon above the horizon; also, the time of its rising.
- cloistered a.
- Dwelling in cloisters; solitary.
- enchanted a.
- Under the power of enchantment; possessed or exercised by enchanters; as, an enchanted castle.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand 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, Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/twilight-and-i-went-hand-in-hand.html, id L29379.
Form and metre
Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand is 30 lines in 5 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBACC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See 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 ABBACC handA · maysB · waysB · landA · wheatC · sweetC
- 2 ABBACC rareA · groveB · woveB · hairA · dimC · rimC
- 3 ABBACC wingsA · fairB · whereB · thingsA · knewC · tooC
- 4 ABBACC thenA · leadB · meadB · glenA · deepC · sleepC
- 5 ABBACC onA · cameB · flameB · wanA · lightC · nightC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Twilight and I went hand in hand, | 8 | /······· |
| As lovers walk in shining Mays, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| O'er musky, memory-haunted ways, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Across a lonely harvest-land, | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| Where west winds chanted in the wheat | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| An old, old vesper wondrous sweet. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Oh, Twilight was a comrade rare | 8 | ·/···/·· |
| For gypsy heath or templed grove, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| In her gray vesture, shadow-wove; | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| I saw the darkness of her hair | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Faint-mirrored in a field-pool dim, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As we stood tip-toe on its rim. | 8 | ········ |
| We went as lightly as on wings | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Through many a scented chamber fair, | 8 | ·/·/˘/˘· |
| Among the pines and balsams, where | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I could have dreamed of darling things, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And ever as we went I knew | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The peeping fairy folk went too. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| I could have lingered now and then | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| By gates of moonrise that might lead | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To some forgotten, spiceried mead, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Or in some mossy, cloistered glen, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Where silence, very still and deep, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Seemed fallen in enchanted sleep. | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| But Twilight ever led me on, | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| As lovers walk, until we came | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| To hills where sunset's shaken flame | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| Had paled to ashes dead and wan; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And there, with footsteps stolen-light | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| She left me to the lure of night. | 8 | ········ |
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.