Heart of the Night
From child to youth; from youth to arduous man;From lethargy to fever of the heart;From faithful life to dream-dowered days apart;From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;--Thus much of change in one swift cycle ranTill now. Alas, the soul!--how soon must sheAccept her primal immortality,--The flesh resume its dust whence it began?
O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life!O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late,Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath:That when the peace is garnered in from strife,The work retrieved, the will regenerate,This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death!
Words in this poem
- arduous a.
- Steep and lofty, in a literal sense; hard to climb. [L. arduus steep, high; akin to Ir. ard high, height.]
- lethargy n.
- Morbid drowsiness; continued or profound sleep, from which a person can scarcely be awaked. [F. léthargie, L. letgargia, Gr. Lethe.]
- brink n.
- The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
- primal a.
- First; primary; original; chief. [LL. primalis, fr. L. primus the first. See Prime, a.]
- resume n.
- A summing up; a condensed statement; an abridgment or brief recapitulation. [F. See Resume.]
- duteous a.
- Fulfilling duty; dutiful; having the sentiments due to a superior, or to one to whom respect or service is owed; obedient; as, a duteous son or daughter. [From Duty.]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- regenerate v. t.
- To generate or produce anew; to reproduce; to give new life, strength, or vigor to.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Heart of the Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from The House of Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #3692; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Heart of the Night, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/heart-of-the-night.html, id L20983.
Form and metre
Heart of the Night is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 ABBAA--A manA · heartB · apartB · banA · ranA · she · immortality · beganA
- 2 ABCABC lifeA · lateB · breathC · strifeA · regenerateB · deathC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| From child to youth; from youth to arduous man; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| From lethargy to fever of the heart; | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘··· |
| From faithful life to dream-dowered days apart; | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;-- | 10 | ·········· |
| Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Till now. Alas, the soul!--how soon must she | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Accept her primal immortality,-- | 10 | ˘/·/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| The flesh resume its dust whence it began? | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life! | 10 | ·········· |
| O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath: | 11 | /·˘/···/˘˘· |
| That when the peace is garnered in from strife, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The work retrieved, the will regenerate, | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘· |
| This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death! | 10 | ·········· |
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.