Analysis of Mother Night
James Weldon Johnson 1871 (Jacksonville) – 1938 (Wiscasset)
Eternities before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
A brooding mother over chaos lay.
And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay,
Shall run their fiery courses and then claim
The haven of the darkness whence they came;
Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way.
So when my feeble sun of life burns out,
And sounded is the hour for my long sleep,
I shall, full weary of the feverish light,
Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt,
And heavy-lidded, I shall softly creep
Into the quiet bosom of the Night.
Scheme | ABBAABBA CDECDE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Petrarchan sonnet |
Metre | 1010111 1101111111 110010001 0101010101 0101110101 11110010011 0101010111 11111111 1111011111 01010101111 11110101001 1001001111 010111101 0101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 583 |
Words | 108 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 233 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 32 sec read
- 133 Views
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"Mother Night" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20720/mother-night>.
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