At Dawn
Children, my children, the daylight is breaking,The cymbals of morn sound the hour of your waking,The long night is o'er, and our labour is ended,Fair blow the fields that we tilled and we tended,Swiftly the harvest grows mellow for reaping,The harvest we sowed in the time of your sleeping.
Weak were our hands but our service was tender,In darkness we dreamed of the dawn of your splendour,In silence we strove for the joy of the morrow,And watered your seeds from the wells of our sorrow,We toiled to enrich the glad hour of your waking,Our vigil is done, lo ! the daylight is breaking.
Children, my children, who wake to inheritThe ultimate hope of our travailing spirit,Say, when your young hearts shall take to their keepingThe manifold dreams we have sown for your reaping,Is it praise, is it pain you will grant us for guerdon?Anoint with your love or arraign with your pardon?
Words in this poem
- daylight n.
- The light of day as opposed to the darkness of night; the light of the sun, as opposed to that of the moon or to artificial light.
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
- vigil n.
- Abstinence from sleep, whether at a time when sleep is customary or not; the act of keeping awake, or the state of being awake, or the state of being awake; sleeplessness; wakefulness; watch. [OE. vigile, L. vigilia, from vigil awake, watchful, probably akin to E. wake: cf. F. vigile. See Wake, v. i., and cf. Reveille, Surveillance, Vedette, Vegetable]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- guerdon n.
- A reward; requital; recompense; -- used in both a good and a bad sense. [OF. guerdon, guerredon, LL. widerdonum (influenced by L. donum gift, cf. Donation ), fr. OHG. widarl; widar again, against (G. wider wieder) + lon reward, G. lo]
- arraign v. t.
- To call or set as a prisoner at the bar of a court to answer to the matter charged in an indictment or complaint. Blackstone. [OE. arainen, arenen, OF. aragnier, aranier, araisnier, F. arraisonner, fr. LL. arrationare to address to call before court; L. ad + ratio reason, reasoning, LL.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
At Dawn is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (London: William Heinemann; New York: John Lane Company, 1912), Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sarojini Naidu, At Dawn, in The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (1912), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-bird-of-time/at-dawn.html, id L27553.
Form and metre
At Dawn is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABBCC, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCC breakingA · wakingA · endedB · tendedB · reapingC · sleepingC
- 2 AABBCC tenderA · splendourA · morrowB · sorrowB · wakingC · breakingC
- 3 --AA-- inherit · spirit · keepingA · reapingA · guerdon · pardon
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Children, my children, the daylight is breaking, | 11 | /˘·/˘·/··/˘ |
| The cymbals of morn sound the hour of your waking, | 13 | ·/˘····/˘··/˘ |
| The long night is o'er, and our labour is ended, | 13 | ······/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Fair blow the fields that we tilled and we tended, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Swiftly the harvest grows mellow for reaping, | 11 | /˘·/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| The harvest we sowed in the time of your sleeping. | 12 | ·/˘·······/˘ |
| Weak were our hands but our service was tender, | 13 | ··/˘··/˘/˘·/˘ |
| In darkness we dreamed of the dawn of your splendour, | 12 | ·/˘·······/˘ |
| In silence we strove for the joy of the morrow, | 12 | ·/˘·······/˘ |
| And watered your seeds from the wells of our sorrow, | 13 | ·/˘······/˘/˘ |
| We toiled to enrich the glad hour of your waking, | 13 | ···˘/··/˘··/˘ |
| Our vigil is done, lo ! the daylight is breaking. | 13 | /˘/˘····/··/˘ |
| Children, my children, who wake to inherit | 11 | /˘·/˘···˘/˘ |
| The ultimate hope of our travailing spirit, | 13 | ·/˘˘··/˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Say, when your young hearts shall take to their keeping | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| The manifold dreams we have sown for your reaping, | 12 | ·/˘·······/˘ |
| Is it praise, is it pain you will grant us for guerdon? | 13 | ···········/˘ |
| Anoint with your love or arraign with your pardon? | 12 | ˘/····˘/··/˘ |
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.