Analysis of Not To The Staring Day
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
Not to the staring Day,
For all the importunate questionings he pursues
In his big, violent voice,
Shall those mild things of bulk and multitude,
The Trees--God's sentinels
Over His gift of live, life-giving air,
Yield of their huge, unutterable selves.
Midsummer-manifold, each one
Voluminous, a labyrinth of life,
They keep their greenest musings, and the dim dreams
That haunt their leafier privacies,
Dissembled, baffling the random gapeseed still
With blank full-faces, or the innocent guile
Of laughter flickering back from shine to shade,
And disappearances of homing birds,
And frolicsome freaks
Of little boughs that frisk with little boughs.
But at the word
Of the ancient, sacerdotal Night,
Night of the many secrets, whose effect -
Transfiguring, hierophantic, dread -
Themselves alone may fully apprehend,
They tremble and are changed.
In each, the uncouth individual soul
Looms forth and glooms
Essential, and, their bodily presences
Touched with inordinate significance,
Wearing the darkness like the livery
Of some mysterious and tremendous guild,
They brood--they menace--they appal;
Or the anguish of prophecy tears them, and they wring
Wild hands of warning in the face
Of some inevitable advance of the doom;
Or, each to the other bending, beckoning, signing
As in some monstrous market-place,
They pass the news, these Gossips of the Prime,
In that old speech their forefathers
Learned on the lawns of Eden, ere they heard
The troubled voice of Eve
Naming the wondering folk of Paradise.
Your sense is sealed, or you should hear them tell
The tale of their dim life, with all
Its compost of experience: how the Sun
Spreads them their daily feast,
Sumptuous, of light, firing them as with wine;
Of the old Moon's fitful solicitude
And those mild messages the Stars
Descend in silver silences and dews;
Or what the sweet-breathing West,
Wanton with wading in the swirl of the wheat,
Said, and their leafage laughed;
And how the wet-winged Angel of the Rain
Came whispering . . . whispering; and the gifts of the Year -
The sting of the stirring sap
Under the wizardry of the young-eyed Spring,
Their summer amplitudes of pomp,
Their rich autumnal melancholy, and the shrill,
Embittered housewifery
Of the lean Winter: all such things,
And with them all the goodness of the Master,
Whose right hand blesses with increase and life,
Whose left hand honours with decay and death.
Thus under the constraint of Night
These gross and simple creatures,
Each in his scores of rings, which rings are years,
A servant of the Will!
And God, the Craftsman, as He walks
The floor of His workshop, hearkens, full of cheer
In thus accomplishing
The aims of His miraculous artistry.
Scheme | XAXBXCXDEXXFXXXXX GHXXXXXAXXIXFJKXJKXLGXX XXDXXBXAXXXXMXJXFCXXEX HLXFXMJI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (29%) |
Metre | 110101 1101100101 0111001 111111010 011100 1011111101 111111 1101011 010001011 11110100011 1111100 110001011 11110101001 11010011111 001001101 011 1101111101 1101 101011 1101010101 111 010111001 110011 0101101001 1101 01001100100 1101000100 1001010100 11010000101 1111011 1010110011011 11110001 110100001101 1110101010010 10110101 1101110101 0111110 1101110111 010111 1001001110 1111111111 01111111 11010100101 111101 1011101111 101110010 01110001 0101010001 1101101 10110001101 10111 0101110101 1100100001101 0110101 10010010111 110111 11010100001 0101 10110111 01110101010 1111010101 111110101 11000111 1101010 1011111111 010101 01010111 0111110111 010100 01110100100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,623 |
Words | 443 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 17, 23, 22, 8 |
Lines Amount | 70 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 537 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 111 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:13 min read
- 69 Views
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"Not To The Staring Day" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40522/not-to-the-staring-day>.
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