An Evening Lull
After a week of physical anguish,Unrest and pain, and feverish heat,Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on,Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain.
Words in this poem
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
- lull v. t.
- To cause to rest by soothing influences; to compose; to calm; to soothe; to quiet. [Akin to OD. lullen to sing to sleep, G. lullen, Dan. lulle, Sw. lulla; all of imitative origin. Cf. Loll, Lollard.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Evening Lull 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, An Evening Lull, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/an-evening-lull.html, id L04118.
Form and metre
An Evening Lull is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.5 syllables. 1 line ends 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| After a week of physical anguish, | 10 | ·····/˘˘/˘ |
| Unrest and pain, and feverish heat, | 9 | ˘/···/˘˘· |
| Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on, | 12 | ···/˘······· |
| Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain. | 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.