Evening Song
Full moon rising on the waters of my heart,Lakes and moon and fires,Cloine tires,Holding her lips apart.
Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon,Miracle made vesper-keeps,Cloine sleeps,And I’ll be sleeping soon.
Cloine, curled like the sleepy waters where the moon-waves start,Radiant, resplendently she gleams,Cloine dreams,Lips pressed against my heart.
Words in this poem
- vesper n.
- The evening star; Hesper; Venus, when seen after sunset; hence, the evening. [L., the evening, the evening star, the west; akin to Gr. west. Cf. Hesperian, Vespers.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Evening Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Cane, Project Gutenberg ebook #60093; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Jean Toomer, Evening Song, in Cane (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60093, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/toomer-cane/evening-song.html, id L01567.
Form and metre
Evening Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 ABBA heartA · firesB · tiresB · apartA
- 2 ABBA moonA · keepsB · sleepsB · soonA
- 3 ABBA startA · gleamsB · dreamsB · heartA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Full moon rising on the waters of my heart, | 11 | ··/˘··/˘··· |
| Lakes and moon and fires, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Cloine tires, | 3 | ·/˘ |
| Holding her lips apart. | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon, | 12 | /˘·/˘/˘····· |
| Miracle made vesper-keeps, | 7 | /˘˘·/˘· |
| Cloine sleeps, | 2 | ·· |
| And I’ll be sleeping soon. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Cloine, curled like the sleepy waters where the moon-waves start, | 13 | ····/˘/˘····· |
| Radiant, resplendently she gleams, | 9 | /˘˘······ |
| Cloine dreams, | 2 | ·· |
| Lips pressed against my heart. | 6 | ······ |
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.