Analysis of The Break of Day

John Shaw Neilson 1872 (Penola, South Australia) – 1942 (Melbourne, Victoria)



THE STARS are pale.   
 Old is the Night, his case is grievous,   
 His strength doth fail.   

Through stilly hours   
The dews have draped with love’s old lavishness           
 The drowsy flowers.   

And Night shall die.   
Already, lo! the Morn’s first ecstasies   
 Across the sky.   

An evil time is done.           
Again, as some one lost in a quaint parable,   
 Comes up the Sun.


Scheme ABA CBC DBD EXE
Poetic Form
Metre 0111 110111110 1111 1110 01111111 01010 0111 01010111 0101 110111 011111001100 1101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 399
Words 63
Sentences 9
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 65
Words per stanza (avg) 15
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

18 sec read
119

John Shaw Neilson

John Shaw Neilson was an Australian poet. Slightly built, for most of his life he worked as a labourer, fruit-picking, clearing scrub, navvying and working in quarries, and, after 1928, working as a messenger with the Country Roads Board in Melbourne. he died when he was 70 years old. more…

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