Analysis of In The JuneTwilight

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)



IN the June twilight, in the soft gray twilight,
The yellow sun-glow trembling through the rainy eve,
As my love lay quiet, came the solemn fiat,
'All these things forever--forever--thou must leave.'

My love she sank down quivering, like a pine in tempest shivering--
'I have had so little happiness as yet beneath the sun:
I have called the shadow sunshine, and the merest frosty moonshine
I have, weeping, blessed the Lord for, as if daylight had begun;

'Till He sent a sudden angel, with a glorious sweet evangel,
Who turned all my tears to pearl-gems, and crowned me--so little worth;
Me!--and through the rainy even changed my poor earth into heaven,
Or, by wondrous revelation, brought the heavens down to earth.

'O the strangeness of the feeling!--O the infinite revealing--
To think how God must love me to have made me so content!
Though I would have served Him humbly, and patiently, and dumbly,
Without any angel standing in the pathway that I went.'

In the June twilight--in the lessening twilight--
My love cried from my bosom an exceeding bitter cry:
'Lord, wait a little longer, until my soul is stronger,--
O, wait till Thou hast taught me to be content to die.'

Then the tender face, all woman, took a glory superhuman,
And she seemed to watch for something, or see some I could not see:
From my arms she rose full statured, all transfigured, queenly featured--
'As Thy will is done in heaven, so on earth still let it be.'

* * * * *

I go lonely, I go lonely, and I feel that earth is only
The vestibule of palaces whose courts we never win:
Yet I see my palace shining, where my love sits, amaranths twining,
And I know the gates stand open, and I shall enter in.


Scheme ABXB CDXD EFDF CGEG AHXH DIXI EJCJ
Poetic Form
Metre 001100111 0101110010101 111110101010 111010010111 11111100101010100 111110100110101 1110110010101 11101011111101 111010101010011 111111110111101 1010101011110110 11100101010111 1010101010100010 11111111111110 11111110010001 01101010001111 0011001001 11111101010101 11010100111110 1111111111011 101011101010010 011111101111111 111111111110 111110101111111 1 1110111001111110 0101100111101 111110101111110 01101110011100
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 1,688
Words 313
Sentences 10
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 4
Lines Amount 29
Letters per line (avg) 44
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 161
Words per stanza (avg) 38
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:32 min read
82

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Dinah Maria Craik (; born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) was an English novelist and poet. She is best remembered for her novel John Halifax, Gentleman, which presents the mid-Victorian ideals of English middle-class life.  more…

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