Analysis of Sunrise

Frederick George Scott 1861 (Montreal, Quebec) – 1944 (Quebec City, Quebec)



O rising Sun, so fair and gay,
What are you bringing me, I pray,
Of sorrow or of joy to-day?

You look as if you meant to please,
Reclining in your gorgeous ease
Behind the bare-branched apple-trees.

The world is rich and bright, as though
The pillows where your head is low
Had lit the fields of driven snow.

The hoar-frost on the window turns
Into a wood of giant ferns
Where some great conflagration burns.

And all my children comes again
As lightsome and as free from stain
As those frost-pictures on the pane.

I would that I could mount on high
And meet you, Sun--that you and I
Had to ourselves the whole wide sky.

But here my poor soul has to stay,
So tell me, rising Sun, I pray,
What are you bringing me to-day?

What shall this busy brain have thought,
What shall these hands and feet have wrought,
What sorrows shall the hours have brought,

Before thy brilliant course is run,
Before this new-born day is done,
Before you set, O rising Sun?


Scheme AAA BBB CCC DDD XEE FFF AAA GGG HHH
Poetic Form
Metre 11011101 11110111 11011111 11111111 01001101 01011101 01110111 01011111 11011101 01110101 01011101 1110101 01110101 1101111 11110101 11111111 01111101 110010111 11111111 11110111 11110111 11110111 11110111 110101011 01110111 01111111 01111101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 931
Words 180
Sentences 9
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
Lines Amount 27
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 82
Words per stanza (avg) 20
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

54 sec read
96

Frederick George Scott

Frederick George Scott was a Canadian poet and author, known as the Poet of the Laurentians. He is sometimes associated with Canada's Confederation Poets, a group that included Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. Scott published 13 books of Christian and patriotic poetry. Scott was a British imperialist who wrote many hymns to the British Empire—eulogizing his country's roles in the Boer Wars and World War I. Many of his poems use the natural world symbolically to convey deeper spiritual meaning. Frederick George Scott was the father of poet F. R. Scott. more…

All Frederick George Scott poems | Frederick George Scott Books

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