Analysis of Fallen In The Night!
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)
IT dressed itself in green leaves all the summer long,
Was full of chattering starlings, loud with throstles' song.
Children played beneath it, lovers sat and talked,
Solitary strollers looked up as they walked.
O, so fresh its branches! and the its old trunk gray
Was so stately rooted, who forbode decay?
Even when winds had blown it yellow and almost bare,
Softly dropped its chestnuts through the misty air;
Still its few leaves rustled with a faint delight,
And their tender colors charmed the sense of sight,
Filled the soul with beauty, and the heart with peace,
Like sweet sounds departing--sweetest when they cease.
Pelting, undermining, loosening, came the rain;
Through its topmost branches roared the hurricane;
Oft it strained and shivered till the night wore past;
But in dusky daylight there the tree stood fast,
Though its birds had left it, and its leaves were dead,
And its blossoms faded, and its fruit all shed.
Ay, and when last sunset came a wanderer by,
Watched it as aforetime with a musing eye,
Still it wore its scant robes so pathetic gay,
Caught the sun's last glimmer, the new moon's first ray;
And majestic, patient, stood amidst its peers
Waiting for the spring-times of uncounted years.
But the worm was busy, and the days were run;
Of its hundred sunsets this was the last one:
So in the quiet midnight, with no eye to see,
None to harm in falling, fell the noble tree!
Says the early laborer, starting at the sight
With a sleepy wonder, 'Fallen in the night!'
Says a schoolboy, leaping in a wild delight
Over trunk and branches, 'Fallen in the night!'
O thou Tree, thou glory of His hand who made
Nothing ever vainly, thou hast Him obeyed!
Lived thy life, and perished when and how He willed;--
Be all lamentation and all murmurs stilled.
To our last hour live we--fruitful, brave, upright,
'T will be a good ending, 'Fallen in the night!'
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFF GGHHII JJCCKK LLMM EEEE NNOOEE |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101110101 11110011111 10101110101 1001011111 111110001111 1110101101 101111110011 10111010101 1111110101 01101010111 10111000111 11101010111 10100100101 111101010 11101010111 101110111 11111101101 01101001111 10111101001 111110101 11111110101 10111001111 00101010111 1010111101 10111000101 1110111011 10010111111 11101010101 101010010101 10101010001 1011000101 10101010001 11111011111 10101011101 11101010111 11101101 1101101110101 111011010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,881 |
Words | 335 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 6, 4, 4, 6 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 245 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 55 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 95 Views
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"Fallen In The Night!" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8012/fallen-in-the-night%21>.
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