Sundown
Sundown - meaning Summary
Evening as Moral Mirror
Longfellow’s "Sundown" uses a fading summer sunset to prompt reflection on endings and the moral weight of human life. The poem contrasts light and shadow, joy and sorrow, and presents the setting sun as a seal on deeds both good and bad. It treats sunset as a quiet, inevitable marker—a mile-stone and a turned page—inviting acceptance of mortality and the irrevocability of the past.
Read Complete AnalysesThe summer sun is sinking low; Only the tree-tops redden and glow: Only the weathercock on the spire Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire; All is in shadow below. O beautiful, awful summer day, What hast thou given, what taken away? Life and death, and love and hate, Homes made happy or desolate, Hearts made sad or gay! On the road of life one mile-stone more! In the book of life one leaf turned o'er! Like a red seal is the setting sun On the good and the evil men have done,-- Naught can to-day restore!
Feel free to be first to leave comment.