Dawn
O tender first cold flush of rose,O budded dawn, wake dreamily;Your dim lips as your lids uncloseMurmur your own sad threnody.O as the soft and frail lights breakUpon your eyelids, and your eyesWider and wider grow and wake,The old pale glory dies.
And then, as sleep lies down to sleepAnd all her dreams lie somewhere dead,The iron shepherd leads his sheepTo pastures parched whose green is shed.Still, O frail dawn, still in your hairAnd your cold eyes and sad sweet lips,The ghosts of all the dreams are there,To fade like passing ships.
Words in this poem
- dreamily adv.
- As if in a dream; softly; slowly; languidly.
- threnody n.
- A song of lamentation; a threnode. Sir T. Herbert. [Gr. Threne, and Ode.]
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Dawn is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Isaac Rosenberg, Project Gutenberg ebook #66889; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Isaac Rosenberg, Dawn, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66889, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rosenberg-poems/dawn.html, id L02530.
Form and metre
Dawn is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 A-A-BCBC roseA · dreamily · uncloseA · threnody · breakB · eyesC · wakeB · diesC
- 2 ABABCDCD sleepA · deadB · sheepA · shedB · hairC · lipsD · thereC · shipsD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O tender first cold flush of rose, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| O budded dawn, wake dreamily; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| Your dim lips as your lids unclose | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Murmur your own sad threnody. | 8 | /˘···/˘˘ |
| O as the soft and frail lights break | 8 | ········ |
| Upon your eyelids, and your eyes | 8 | ···/···· |
| Wider and wider grow and wake, | 6 | /·/··· |
| The old pale glory dies. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And then, as sleep lies down to sleep | 8 | ········ |
| And all her dreams lie somewhere dead, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| The iron shepherd leads his sheep | 7 | ·//˘··· |
| To pastures parched whose green is shed. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Still, O frail dawn, still in your hair | 8 | ········ |
| And your cold eyes and sad sweet lips, | 8 | ········ |
| The ghosts of all the dreams are there, | 8 | ········ |
| To fade like passing ships. | 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.