Moonset
Past seven o'clock: time to be gone;Twelfth-night's over and dawn shivering up:A hasty cut of the loaf, a steaming cup,Down to the door, and there is Coachman John.
Ruddy of cheek is John and bright of eye;But John it appears has none of your grins and winks;Civil enough, but short: perhaps he thinks:Words come once in a mile, and always dry.
Has he a mind or not? I wonder; but soonWe turn through a leafless wood, and there to the right,Like a sun bewitched in alien realms of night,Mellow and yellow and rounded hangs the moon.
Strangely near she seems, and terribly great:The world is dead: why are we travelling still?Nightmare silence grips my struggling will;We are driving for ever and ever to find a gate.
"When you come to consider the moon," says John at last,And stops, to feel his footing and take his stand;"And then there's some will say there's never a handThat made the world!"A flick, and the gates are passed.
Out of the dim magical moonlit park,Out to the workday road and wider skies:There's a warm flush in the East where day's to rise,And I'm feeling the better for Coachman John's remark.
Words in this poem
- coachman n.
- A man whose business is to drive a coach or carriage.
- strangely adv.
- As something foreign, or not one's own; in a manner adapted to something foreign and strange.
- flick v. t.
- To whip lightly or with a quick jerk; to flap; as, to flick a horse; to flick the dirt from boots. Thackeray. [Cf. Flicker.]
- moonlit a.
- Illumined by the moon.
- workday n.
- A day on which work is performed, as distinguished from Sunday, festivals, etc., a working day. [AS. weorcdæg.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Moonset is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems: New and Old, Project Gutenberg ebook #24405; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry John Newbolt, Moonset, in Poems: New and Old (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24405, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/newbolt-poems/moonset.html, id L11502.
Form and metre
Moonset is 25 lines in 6 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 4 of its 6 stanzas. 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.3 syllables. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -AA- gone · upA · cupA · john
- 2 ABBA eyeA · winksB · thinksB · dryA
- 3 ABBA soonA · rightB · nightB · moonA
- 4 ABBA greatA · stillB · willB · gateA
- 5 ABB-A lastA · standB · handB · world · passedA
- 6 ABBA parkA · skiesB · riseB · remarkA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Past seven o'clock: time to be gone; | 9 | ·/˘˘/···· |
| Twelfth-night's over and dawn shivering up: | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| A hasty cut of the loaf, a steaming cup, | 11 | ·/˘·····/˘· |
| Down to the door, and there is Coachman John. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Ruddy of cheek is John and bright of eye; | 10 | /˘········ |
| But John it appears has none of your grins and winks; | 12 | ···˘/······· |
| Civil enough, but short: perhaps he thinks: | 10 | /˘˘/··˘/·· |
| Words come once in a mile, and always dry. | 10 | ·······/·· |
| Has he a mind or not? I wonder; but soon | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| We turn through a leafless wood, and there to the right, | 12 | ····/˘······ |
| Like a sun bewitched in alien realms of night, | 11 | ···˘/·/˘··· |
| Mellow and yellow and rounded hangs the moon. | 11 | /˘·/˘·/˘··· |
| Strangely near she seems, and terribly great: | 10 | /˘····/˘˘· |
| The world is dead: why are we travelling still? | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Nightmare silence grips my struggling will; | 10 | /·/˘··/˘˘· |
| We are driving for ever and ever to find a gate. | 12 | ··/˘·/·/···· |
| "When you come to consider the moon," says John at last, | 13 | ····˘/˘······ |
| And stops, to feel his footing and take his stand; | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| "And then there's some will say there's never a hand | 10 | ·······/·· |
| That made the world!" | 4 | ···· |
| A flick, and the gates are passed. | 7 | ······· |
| Out of the dim magical moonlit park, | 10 | ····/˘˘/·· |
| Out to the workday road and wider skies: | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| There's a warm flush in the East where day's to rise, | 11 | ··········· |
| And I'm feeling the better for Coachman John's remark. | 13 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘·˘/ |
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.