Song (“I’ the glooming light”)
I’ the glooming lightOf middle nightSo cold and white,Worn Sorrow sits by the moaning wave;Beside her are laidHer mattock and spade,For she hath half delved her own deep grave.Alone she is there:The white clouds drizzle: her hair falls loose;Her shoulders are bare;Her tears are mixed with the bearded dews.
Death standeth by;She will not die;With glazed eyeShe looks at her grave: she cannot sleep;Ever aloneShe maketh her moan:She cannot speak; she can only weep;For she will not hope.The thick snow falls on her flake by flake,The dull wave mourns down the slope,The world will not change, and her heart will not break.
Words in this poem
- glooming n.
- Twilight (of morning or evening); the gloaming. [Cf. Gloaming.]
- mattock n.
- An implement for digging and grubbing. The head has two long steel blades, one like an adz and the other like a narrow ax or the point of a pickax. [AS. mattuc; cf. W. matog.]
- drizzle v. i.
- To rain slightly in very small drops; to fall, as water from the clouds, slowly and in fine particles; as, it drizzles; drizzling drops or rain. [Prop. freq. of AS. dreósan to fall. See Dreary.]
- flake n.
- A paling; a hurdle. [prov. Eng.] [Cf. Icel. flaki, fleki, Dan. flage, D. vlaak.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song (“I’ the glooming light”) is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Project Gutenberg ebook #8601; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, Song (“I’ the glooming light”), in The Early Poems (1830–1842), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8601, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-early-poems/song-i-the-glooming-light.html, id L20764.
Form and metre
Song (“I’ the glooming light”) is 22 lines in 2 stanzas of 11 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AAABCCBDEDE. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 AAABCCBDEDE lightA · nightA · whiteA · waveB · laidC · spadeC · graveB · thereD · looseE · bareD · dewsE
- 2 AAABCCBDEDE byA · dieA · eyeA · sleepB · aloneC · moanC · weepB · hopeD · flakeE · slopeD · breakE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I’ the glooming light | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Of middle night | 4 | ·/˘· |
| So cold and white, | 4 | ···· |
| Worn Sorrow sits by the moaning wave; | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| Beside her are laid | 5 | ˘/··· |
| Her mattock and spade, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| For she hath half delved her own deep grave. | 9 | ········· |
| Alone she is there: | 5 | ˘/··· |
| The white clouds drizzle: her hair falls loose; | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Her shoulders are bare; | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Her tears are mixed with the bearded dews. | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Death standeth by; | 4 | ·/˘· |
| She will not die; | 4 | ···· |
| With glazed eye | 3 | ··· |
| She looks at her grave: she cannot sleep; | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Ever alone | 4 | /˘˘/ |
| She maketh her moan: | 5 | ····· |
| She cannot speak; she can only weep; | 9 | ·˘/···/˘· |
| For she will not hope. | 5 | ····· |
| The thick snow falls on her flake by flake, | 9 | ········· |
| The dull wave mourns down the slope, | 7 | ······· |
| The world will not change, and her heart will not break. | 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.