Analysis of At That Hour

James Joyce 1882 (Rathgar) – 1941 (Zürich)



At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
The pale gates of sunrise?

When all things repose, do you alone
Awake to hear the sweet harps play
To Love before him on his way,
And the night wind answering in antiphon
Till night is overgone?

Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
Whose way in heaven is aglow
At that hour when soft lights come and go,
Soft sweet music in the air above
And in the earth below.


Scheme ABBAB CDDXC EFFEF
Poetic Form
Metre 1110111101 11010101 111011001 111010111 01111 111011101 01110111 11011111 0011100010 1111 1101001101 11010101 1110111101 111000101 000101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 521
Words 102
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 15
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 134
Words per stanza (avg) 33
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 30, 2023

30 sec read
101

James Joyce

ames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century.  more…

All James Joyce poems | James Joyce Books

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