Written on a Summer Evening
Written on a Summer Evening - form Summary
A Sonnet Frames Mortality
This sonnet listens to church bells as a prompt to meditate on collective ritual, mortality, and renewal. The speaker notes how bells summon people to solemn duties and compares human passage to an "outburnt lamp," yet resists mere gloom by imagining death as a prelude to new growth and enduring fame. The poem compresses a shift from melancholy to consolation within the tight sonnet shape.
Read Complete AnalysesThe church bells toll a melancholy round, Calling the people to some other prayers, Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares, More harkening to the sermon's horrid sound. Surely the mind of man is closely bound In some blind spell: seeing that each one tears Himself from fireside joys and Lydian airs, And converse high of those with glory crowned. Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp, A chill as from a tomb, did I not know That they are dying like an outburnt lamp, - That 'tis their sighing, wailing, ere they go Into oblivion -that fresh flowers will grow, And many glories of immortal stamp.
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