The Nights Remember
The days remember and the nights rememberThe kingly hours that once you made so great,Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor,Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state.
Let them not wake again, better to lie there,Wrapped in memories, jewelled and arrayed--Many a ghostly king has waked from death-sleepAnd found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.
Words in this poem
- ghostly a.
- Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual; as, a ghostly confessor. [OE. gastlich, gostlich, AS. gastlic. See Ghost.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Nights Remember is in the public domain. This text is taken from Flame and Shadow, Project Gutenberg ebook #591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sara Teasdale, The Nights Remember, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/the-nights-remember.html, id L20800.
Form and metre
The Nights Remember is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-A remember · greatA · splendor · stateA
- 2 -A-A there · arrayedA · sleep · decayedA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The days remember and the nights remember | 11 | ··˘/˘···˘/˘ |
| The kingly hours that once you made so great, | 11 | ·/˘/˘······ |
| Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor, | 12 | ······/˘··/˘ |
| Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Let them not wake again, better to lie there, | 11 | ····˘//˘··· |
| Wrapped in memories, jewelled and arrayed-- | 11 | ·˘·/˘˘/˘·˘/ |
| Many a ghostly king has waked from death-sleep | 11 | /˘·/˘······ |
| And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed. | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
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.