Analysis of Night And Sleep

Coventry Patmore 1823 (Woodford, London) – 1896 (Lymington)



How strange at night to wake
And watch, while others sleep,
Till sight and hearing ache
For objects that may keep
The awful inner sense
Unroused, lest it should mark
The life that haunts the emptiness
And horror of the dark!
How strange at night the bay
Of dogs, how wild the note
Of cocks that scream for day,
In homesteads far remote;
How strange and wild to hear
The old and crumbling tower,
Amid the darkness, suddenly
Take tongue and speak the hour!
Albeit the love-sick brain
Affects the dreary moon,
Ill things alone refrain
From life's nocturnal swoon:
Men melancholy mad,
Beasts ravenous and sly,
The robber, and the murderer,
Remorse, with lidless eye.
The nightingale is gay,
For she can vanquish night;
Dreaming, she sings of day
Notes that make darkness bright;
But when the refluent gloom
Saddens the gaps of song,
Men charge on her the dolefulness,
And call her crazed with wrong.


Scheme ABABCDEDFGFGHIJIKLKLMNINFOFOPQCQ
Poetic Form
Metre 111111 011101 110101 110111 010101 11111 01110100 010101 111101 111101 111111 01101 110111 01010010 01010100 1101010 0100111 010101 110101 110101 11001 110001 01000100 01111 010011 111101 101111 111101 11011 100111 111001 010111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 873
Words 159
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 32
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 712
Words per stanza (avg) 157
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
115

Coventry Patmore

Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage. more…

All Coventry Patmore poems | Coventry Patmore Books

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    Which poet is known for writing "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"?
    A T.S. Eliot
    B Sylvia Plath
    C Dylan Thomas
    D William Shakespeare