A Prairie Sunset
Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,The earth’s whole amplitude and Nature’s multiform power consign’dfor once to colors;The light, the general air possess’d by them--colors till now unknown,No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian--North, South, all,Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.
Words in this poem
- amplitude n.
- State of being ample; extent of surface or space; largeness of dimensions; size. [L. amplitudo, fr. amplus: cf. F. amplitude. See Ample.]
- multiform a.
- Having many forms, shapes, or appearances. [L. multiformis; multus much, many + forma shape: cf. F. multiforme.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Prairie Sunset is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, A Prairie Sunset, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/a-prairie-sunset.html, id L04108.
Form and metre
A Prairie Sunset is 7 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 13.0 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 A--AA-- fawnA · consign'd · colors · unknownA · meridianA · all · last
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn, | 16 | ··˘/·/˘˘/˘˘/˘/˘· |
| The earth’s whole amplitude and Nature’s multiform power consign’d | 16 | ···/˘··/˘/˘˘/˘˘/ |
| for once to colors; | 5 | ···/˘ |
| The light, the general air possess’d by them--colors till now unknown, | 17 | ···/˘˘·˘/··/˘··˘/ |
| No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian-- | 18 | ·/˘˘/··/˘·˘/··˘/˘˘ |
| North, South, all, | 3 | ··· |
| Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last. | 16 | ·/˘˘/˘/˘·/˘/···· |
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.