"To the Evening Star"

[mystery_spell]

I'm sure some of you have heard of this poem by William Blake called "To the Evening Star," though not much focus is placed upon it typically. I'll placed a copy of the poem below.

I was wondering what your interpretations of the poem are and whether or not you like it (when compared to Blake's other poems). I'm really just looking for other people's opinions.

Personally, I enjoy this poem quite a lot. The personification of the evening star, the imagery, the lack of a rhyme scheme, the form (sonnet), the tone, the topic, etc. all add to the beauty of this piece of poetry. Let me know what you think!

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"To the Evening Star"
by William Blake

Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro' the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.

[Blankverse]

Blake, William Blake, has written an abundance of songs and poems.

I think:
To the evening star is an ode to an evening star. In this context we can interpret the poem as such. The fair-hair’d angel of the evening is the star itself, the goddess of the night. Blake describes, in a very elegant way, how lovely the evening star is. The wolf is his symbol for the night; it has a grey fur, and has an affinity with the dark, the night. The lion, with a golden fur, is a symbol for the glorious morning; the lion glares through the dun forest means as much as the morning breaks through.

Nevertheless, the stylistic features in this poem are far more interesting. To begin with, the poem is in iambic pentameter, and has no rhyme scheme: blank verse. I would like to denote that line 6 and line 14, which is the last line, have 12 syllables instead of 10. The extra syllables of the last line are an emphasis to end the poem.

Secondly, assonance, consonance and alliteration within the poem will be dealt with.
The schemes on the pages attached will help explain why assonance, consonance and alliteration are that important. The first scheme is about alliteration with the vowel ‘t’. Important is that lines 4, 7, 10 and 13 have no alliteration with ‘t’. If you divide the 14 lines in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet; then there can be found that there is always one line in a stanza that has no alliteration, and, odd enough, this is respectively the last line, the penultimate line, the second and the first line. Examples can be found on this scheme.

Skipping to assonance with the vocal /aI/ as in while, the lines without this assonance are lines 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and line 13. Important is that if you divide the poem into a Shakespearean sonnet, the lines without assonance increase in the same way the quantity of the stanzas ‘increases’. These are some rare oddities. Examples can be found in the attachments.

Consonance has no real influence concerning the poem, There is only one to be found. This being, on line 7: ‘shuts its sweet eyes’.

Third, internal rhyme and enjambment kick in. Internal rhyme can be found on line 5: smile – while. Enjambment can be found throughout the poem in its totality. Beginning line 1 and ending line 14, Blake makes it look like a piece of prose. It could be a piece a prose – if the lines were put together.

There is also a list made of pros and contras about this poem being a sonnet or not.

However, there is no link to be found between the meaning and the assonance, consonance and alliteration. Maybe there is one, e.g. the assonance as in while, it emphasises a downward, sunset like movement, which emphases the ode to the night. The lines with alliteration ‘t’ make an upward movement, this could be the movement of the moon.

Perhaps I have dug too deep.