Serenade
Now the toils of day are over,And the sun hath sunk to rest,Seeking, like a fiery lover,The bosom of the blushing west--
The faithful night keeps watch and ward,Raising the moon her silver shield,And summoning the stars to guardThe slumbers of my fair Mathilde!
The faithful night! Now all things lieHid by her mantle dark and dim,In pious hope I hither hie,And humbly chant mine ev'ning hymn.
Thou art my prayer, my saint, my shrine!(For never holy pilgrim kneel'd,Or wept at feet more pure than thine),My virgin love, my sweet Mathilde!
Words in this poem
- humbly adv.
- With humility; lowly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Serenade is in the public domain. This text is taken from Ballads, Project Gutenberg ebook #2732; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Makepeace Thackeray, Serenade, in Ballads (1849–1855), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2732, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/thackeray-ballads/serenade.html, id L10361.
Form and metre
Serenade is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-A over · restA · lover · westA
- 2 -A-A ward · shieldA · guard · mathildeA
- 3 -A-A lie · dimA · hie · hymnA
- 4 ABAB shrineA · kneel'dB · thineA · mathildeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Now the toils of day are over, | 8 | ········ |
| And the sun hath sunk to rest, | 7 | ······· |
| Seeking, like a fiery lover, | 9 | /˘··/˘˘/˘ |
| The bosom of the blushing west-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The faithful night keeps watch and ward, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Raising the moon her silver shield, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| And summoning the stars to guard | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| The slumbers of my fair Mathilde! | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| The faithful night! Now all things lie | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Hid by her mantle dark and dim, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In pious hope I hither hie, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And humbly chant mine ev'ning hymn. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Thou art my prayer, my saint, my shrine! | 8 | ········ |
| (For never holy pilgrim kneel'd, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Or wept at feet more pure than thine), | 8 | ········ |
| My virgin love, my sweet Mathilde! | 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.