A Twilight Song
As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame,Musing on long-pass’d war-scenes--of the countless buried unknownsoldiers,Of the vacant names, as unindented air’s and sea’s--the unreturn’d,The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and thedeep-fill’d trenchesOf gather’d from dead all America, North, South, East, West, whencethey came up,From wooded Maine, New-England’s farms, from fertile Pennsylvania,Illinois, Ohio,From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas,(Even here in my room-shadows and half-lights in the noiselessflickering flames,Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising--I hear therhythmic tramp of the armies;)You million unwrit names all, all--you dark bequest from all the war,A special verse for you--a flash of duty long neglected--your mysticroll strangely gather’d here,Each name recall’d by me from out the darkness and death’s ashes,Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for manyfuture year,Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,Embalm’d with love in this twilight song.
Words in this poem
- countless a.
- Incapable of being counted; not ascertainable; innumerable.
- burial n.
- A grave; a tomb; a place of sepulture. [OE. buriel, buriels, grave, tomb, AS. byrgels, fr. byrgan to bury, and akin to OS. burgisli sepulcher.]
- illinois n.
- A tribe of North American Indians, which formerly occupied the region between the Wabash and Mississippi rivers.
- measureless a.
- Without measure; unlimited; immeasurable.
- stalwart a.
- Brave; bold; strong; redoubted; daring; vehement; violent. [OE. stalworth, AS. stælwyrth serviceable, probably originally, good at stealing, or worth stealing or taking, and afterwards extended to other causes of estimat]
- rhythmic a.
- Pertaining to, or of the nature of, rhythm DAy and night I worked my rhythmic thought. Mrs. Browning. [Gr. rhythmicus, F. rhythmique.]
- strangely adv.
- As something foreign, or not one's own; in a manner adapted to something foreign and strange.
- henceforth adv.
- From this time forward; henceforward.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Twilight Song 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 Twilight Song, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/a-twilight-song.html, id L04136.
Form and metre
A Twilight Song is 23 lines in a single stanza. 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.6 syllables. 10 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 35% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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---B--B-- flame · unknown · soldiers · unreturn'd · theA · trenches · whence · up · pennsylvania · ohio · texas · noiseless · flames · theA · armies · war · mystic · hereB · ashes · many · yearB · south · song
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame, | 16 | ····/··˘/··/˘˘·· |
| Musing on long-pass’d war-scenes--of the countless buried unknown | 15 | /˘·······/˘/˘˘/ |
| soldiers, | 2 | /˘ |
| Of the vacant names, as unindented air’s and sea’s--the unreturn’d, | 17 | ··/˘············· |
| The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and the | 15 | ·····/˘··/˘˘··· |
| deep-fill’d trenches | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Of gather’d from dead all America, North, South, East, West, whence | 15 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘····· |
| they came up, | 3 | ··· |
| From wooded Maine, New-England’s farms, from fertile Pennsylvania, | 15 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘·˘/˘ |
| Illinois, Ohio, | 6 | ·˘/˘/˘ |
| From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas, | 18 | ··/˘˘·˘/˘····˘/˘/˘ |
| (Even here in my room-shadows and half-lights in the noiseless | 15 | /˘····/······/˘ |
| flickering flames, | 4 | /˘˘· |
| Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising--I hear the | 16 | ˘/···/˘··/˘/˘··· |
| rhythmic tramp of the armies;) | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| You million unwrit names all, all--you dark bequest from all the war, | 16 | ·/˘·······˘/···· |
| A special verse for you--a flash of duty long neglected--your mystic | 18 | ·/˘······/˘·˘/˘·/˘ |
| roll strangely gather’d here, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Each name recall’d by me from out the darkness and death’s ashes, | 15 | ··˘/·····/˘··/˘ |
| Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for many | 16 | //········˘/˘·/˘ |
| future year, | 3 | /˘· |
| Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South, | 15 | ·/˘·˘/˘·˘/····· |
| Embalm’d with love in this twilight song. | 9 | ˘/····/·· |
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.