Night
Ah! sleep is sweet, but yetI will not sleep awhileNor for a space forgetThe toil of that last mile;
But lie awake and feelThe cool sheets' tremulous kissesO'er all my body steal...Is sleep as sweet as this is?
Words in this poem
- awhile adv.
- For a while; for some time; for a short time. [Adj. a + while time, interval.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, Night, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/night.html, id L23147.
Form and metre
Night is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABAB yetA · awhileB · forgetA · mileB
- 2 ABAB feelA · kissesB · stealA · isB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ah! sleep is sweet, but yet | 6 | ······ |
| I will not sleep awhile | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Nor for a space forget | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The toil of that last mile; | 6 | ······ |
| But lie awake and feel | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| The cool sheets' tremulous kisses | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| O'er all my body steal... | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Is sleep as sweet as this is? | 7 | ······· |
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.