Midnight
The dank earth reeks with three days' rain,The phantom trees are dark and still,Above the darkness and the hillThe tardy moon shines out again.O heavy lethargy of pain!O shadows of forgotten ill!
My parrot lips, when I was young,To prove and to disprove were bold.The mighty world has tied my tongue,And in dull custom growing oldI leave the burning truth untoldAnd the heart's anguish all unsung.
Youth dies in man's benumbed soul,Maid bows to woman's broken life,A thousand leagues of silence rollBetween the husband and the wife.The spirit faints with inward strifeAnd lonely gazing at the pole.
But how should reptiles pine for wingsOr a parched desert know its dearth?Immortal is the soul that singsThe sorrow of her mortal birth.O cruel beauty of the earth!O love's unutterable stings!
Words in this poem
- dank n.
- Moisture; humidity; water.
- lethargy n.
- Morbid drowsiness; continued or profound sleep, from which a person can scarcely be awaked. [F. léthargie, L. letgargia, Gr. Lethe.]
- untold a.
- Not told; not related; not revealed; as, untold secrets.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- dearth n.
- Scarcity which renders dear; want; lack; specifically, lack of food on account of failure of crops; famine. [OE. derthe, fr. dere. See Dear.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Midnight is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #49721; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George Santayana, Midnight, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49721, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/santayana-poems/midnight.html, id L21747.
Form and metre
Midnight is 24 lines in 4 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABBA, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 ABBAAB rainA · stillB · hillB · againA · painA · illB
- 2 ABABBA youngA · boldB · tongueA · oldB · untoldB · unsungA
- 3 ABABBA soulA · lifeB · rollA · wifeB · strifeB · poleA
- 4 ABABBA wingsA · dearthB · singsA · birthB · earthB · stingsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The dank earth reeks with three days' rain, | 8 | ········ |
| The phantom trees are dark and still, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Above the darkness and the hill | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The tardy moon shines out again. | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| O heavy lethargy of pain! | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| O shadows of forgotten ill! | 8 | ·/··˘/˘· |
| My parrot lips, when I was young, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| To prove and to disprove were bold. | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| The mighty world has tied my tongue, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And in dull custom growing old | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| I leave the burning truth untold | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And the heart's anguish all unsung. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Youth dies in man's benumbed soul, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Maid bows to woman's broken life, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| A thousand leagues of silence roll | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Between the husband and the wife. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The spirit faints with inward strife | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And lonely gazing at the pole. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| But how should reptiles pine for wings | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or a parched desert know its dearth? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Immortal is the soul that sings | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| The sorrow of her mortal birth. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| O cruel beauty of the earth! | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| O love's unutterable stings! | 8 | ··˘/˘˘˘· |
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.