Analysis of Night-Fliers

Padraic Colum 1881 (County Longford) – 1972 (Enfield)



THE birds that soar break space
Like heavy bodies hurled!
Not so the birds of night
They move as in a sphere
On which they touch always
How patterned their flight!
The owl, the whippoorwill!

And like volcano's ash
His plumes all cinderous
Black mirrors are his eyes
(The owl's). They'll fill with light
What time will come the cries
As from tongues taut with dews
(The whippoorwills). What sounds
Are in their day-lost world,
What motions and what hues!


Scheme ABCXXCX XADCDEXBE
Poetic Form
Metre 011111 110101 110111 111001 11111 11011 0101 010101 1111 110111 011111 111101 111111 01011 101111 110011
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 446
Words 82
Sentences 7
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 7, 9
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 179
Words per stanza (avg) 40
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

25 sec read
351

Padraic Colum

Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. more…

All Padraic Colum poems | Padraic Colum Books

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