The Call to Evening Prayer
Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!From mosque and minar the muezzins are calling;Pour forth your praises, O Chosen of Islam;Swiftly the shadows of sunset are falling:Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!
Ave Maria! Ave Maria!Devoutly the priests at the altars are singing;O ye who worship the Son of the Virgin,Make your orisons, the vespers are ringing:Ave Maria! Ave Maria!
Ahura Mazda! Ahura Mazda!How the sonorous Avesta is flowing!Ye, who to Flame and the light make obeisance,Bend low where the quenchless blue torches are glowing:
Ahura Mazda! Ahura Mazda!Naray'yana! Naray'yana!Hark to the ageless, divine invocation!Lift up your hands, O ye children of Bramha,Lift up your voices in rapt adoration:Naray'yana! Naray'yana!
Words in this poem
- allah n.
- The name of the Supreme Being, in use among the Arabs and the Mohammedans generally. [contr. fr. the article al the + ilah God.]
- islam n.
- The religion of the Mohammedans; Mohammedanism; Islamism. Their formula of faith is: There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. [Ar. islam obedience to the will of God, submission, humbling one's self, resigning one's self to the divine disposal. Cf. Moslem.]
- devoutly adv.
- In a devout and reverent manner; with devout emotions; piously.
- quenchless a.
- Incapable of being quenched; inextinguishable; as, quenchless fire or fury.
- ageless a.
- Without old age limits of duration; as, fountains of ageless youth.
- 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.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Call to Evening Prayer 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, The Call to Evening Prayer, in The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (1912), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-bird-of-time/the-call-to-evening-prayer.html, id L27557.
Form and metre
The Call to Evening Prayer is 20 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is dactylic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
See other poems in dactylic 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 A---A akbarA · calling · islam · falling · akbarA
- 2 AB-BA mariaA · singingB · virgin · ringingB · mariaA
- 3 -A-A mazda · flowingA · obeisance · glowingA
- 4 -AB-BA mazda · naray'yanaA · invocationB · bramha · adorationB · naray'yanaA
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 dactylic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar! | 10 | /˘·/·/˘·/˘ |
| From mosque and minar the muezzins are calling; | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Pour forth your praises, O Chosen of Islam; | 11 | ···/˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Swiftly the shadows of sunset are falling: | 11 | /˘·/··/··/˘ |
| Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar! | 10 | /˘·/·/˘·/˘ |
| Ave Maria! Ave Maria! | 11 | /˘˘/˘/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Devoutly the priests at the altars are singing; | 12 | ˘/˘····/˘·/˘ |
| O ye who worship the Son of the Virgin, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Make your orisons, the vespers are ringing: | 11 | ······/˘·/˘ |
| Ave Maria! Ave Maria! | 11 | /˘˘/˘/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Ahura Mazda! Ahura Mazda! | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| How the sonorous Avesta is flowing! | 11 | ··/˘˘˘/˘·/˘ |
| Ye, who to Flame and the light make obeisance, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| Bend low where the quenchless blue torches are glowing: | 12 | ····/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Ahura Mazda! Ahura Mazda! | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| Naray'yana! Naray'yana! | 6 | ······ |
| Hark to the ageless, divine invocation! | 11 | ···/˘˘/·˘/˘ |
| Lift up your hands, O ye children of Bramha, | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| Lift up your voices in rapt adoration: | 11 | ···/˘···˘/˘ |
| Naray'yana! Naray'yana! | 6 | ······ |
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.