Analysis of Grey Evening
David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)
When you went, how was it you carried with you
My missal book of fine, flamboyant hours?
My book of turrets and of red-thorn bowers,
And skies of gold, and ladies in bright tissue?
Now underneath a blue-grey twilight, heaped
Beyond the withering snow of the shorn fields
Stands rubble of stunted houses; all is reaped
And garnered that the golden daylight yields.
Dim lamps like yellow poppies glimmer among
The shadowy stubble of the under-dusk,
As farther off the scythe of night is swung,
And little stars come rolling from their husk.
And all the earth is gone into a dust
Of greyness mingled with a fume of gold,
Covered with aged lichens, past with must,
And all the sky has withered and gone cold.
And so I sit and scan the book of grey,
Feeling the shadows like a blind man reading,
All fearful lest I find the last words bleeding
With wounds of sunset and the dying day.
Scheme | ABBA CDCD EFEF GHGH IJJI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11111111011 11011101010 11110011110 0111010011 10101111 01010011011 11011010111 010101011 11110101001 01001010101 1101011111 0101110111 0101110101 111010111 101110111 0101110011 0111010111 1001101110 11011101110 111100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 892 |
Words | 163 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 139 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 20, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 58 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Grey Evening" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7842/grey-evening>.
Discuss this David Herbert Lawrence poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In