Poems
After Sunset
The vast and solemn company of clouds
Around the Sun’s death, lit, incarnadined,
Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds
The level pasture, creeping up behind
Through voiceless vales, o’er lawn and purpled hill
And hazéd mead, her mystery to fulfil.
Cows low from far-off farms; the loitering wind
Sighs in the hedge, you hear it if you will,—
Tho’ all the wood, alive atop with wings
Lifting and sinking through the leafy nooks,
Seethes with the clamour of a thousand rooks.
Now every sound at length is hush’d away.
These few are sacred moments. One more Day
Drops in the shadowy gulf of bygone things.
Around the Sun’s death, lit, incarnadined,
Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds
The level pasture, creeping up behind
Through voiceless vales, o’er lawn and purpled hill
And hazéd mead, her mystery to fulfil.
Cows low from far-off farms; the loitering wind
Sighs in the hedge, you hear it if you will,—
Tho’ all the wood, alive atop with wings
Lifting and sinking through the leafy nooks,
Seethes with the clamour of a thousand rooks.
Now every sound at length is hush’d away.
These few are sacred moments. One more Day
Drops in the shadowy gulf of bygone things.
Analysis (ai): The poem establishes a quiet, meditative tone as it transitions from twilight to night, emphasizing stillness and the passage of time through subdued natural imagery.
- Imagery and Setting: Visual contrasts between the dying red light of sunset and the encroaching ashen tones of night dominate, anchoring the poem in a rural Irish landscape familiar from the author’s other pastoral works.
- Sound and Silence: Auditory details—cows lowing, the sighing wind, rooks clattering—gradually recede, highlighting a progression from ambient activity to profound silence, reinforcing the theme of daily cycles ending.
- Temporal Movement: The closing lines treat the end of day as a kind of vanishing, aligning with the author’s frequent preoccupation with transience, though less mournful than in his elegiac pieces.
- Form and Rhythm: Written in iambic pentameter with irregular rhyme, the poem loosely follows a modified sonnet-like structure but extends beyond fourteen lines, reflecting controlled yet flexible formal tendencies common in mid-Victorian verse.
- Comparative Style: Unlike the more folk-inflected rhythms and narrative drive of the author’s better-known “The Fairies,” this piece favors descriptive stillness and atmospheric precision, aligning it with the quieter moments in his later collections.
- Historical Context: It fits within the Victorian tradition of nature meditation but avoids overt moralizing or religious closure, showing a shift toward secular contemplation found in later 19th-century nature poetry.
- Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than viewing the sunset as a symbol of death or spiritual transition, the poem treats it as an ordinary, almost impersonal event—each day’s end merging indistinctly into an accumulated past.
- Place in Oeuvre: Among the author’s lesser-known lyrics, this poem stands out for its restraint and structural cohesion, avoiding the whimsy or ballad conventions that dominate his popular reputation.
- Linguistic Features: While not employing dialect, the use of archaic diction like “thro’,” “wan,” and “hush’d” lends a solemn timbre, shaping a tone that feels detached yet observant.
William Allingham (19 March 1824 – 18 November 1889) was an Irish poet, diarist and editor. He wrote several volumes of lyric verse, and his poem “The Faeries” was much anthologised. But he is better known for his posthumously published Diary, in which he records his lively encounters with Tennyson, Carlyle and other writers and artists. His wife, Helen Allingham, was a well-known artist, watercolourist and illustrator.
