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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

The Evening Star


              1Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,
              2    Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,
              3    Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
              4    The evening star, the star of love and rest!
              5And then anon she doth herself divest
              6    Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
              7    Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
              8    With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.
              9O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
            10    My morning and my evening star of love!
            11    My best and gentlest lady! even thus,
            12As that fair planet in the sky above,
            13    Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,
            14    And from thy darkened window fades the light.

Notes

1] oriel: a great bay window.

9] Hesperus: Venus, the evening star.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Bibliographical and Critical Notes, Riverside Edition (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1890), I, 235.
First publication date: 1845
Publication date note: The Belfry of Bruges (1845)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/24

Composition date: 30 October 1845
Composition date note: "`October 30, 1845. The Indian Summer still in its glory. Wrote the sonnet Hesperus in the rustic seat of the old apple-tree.' This sonnet, addressed to his wife, and afterward given its present title, `is noticeable,' says his biographer, `as being the only love-poem among Mr. Longfellow's verses.'" (The Editor, p. 235.)
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbacdcdee

Other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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