Ode to Evening
William Collins
Ode to Evening is one of the simplest poems of William Collins in his collection 'Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects'. It is composed during one stanza of fifty two lines with un-rhyming pattern.
This beautiful poem is addressed to the evening who is taken into account the goddess, nymph or maid. The personified evening is chaste, reserved and meek opposite to the characteristics of the brilliant sun. This poem has mainly three parts; The first one is that the opening salutation to the evening, the second one is that the middle where the poet requests for the guidance in receiving peace, and thus the last one is his personal point of view to return to the general aspect.
When the poem commences, the speaker humbly requests to the spirit of Evening to grant him the skill of singing in order that he could please her. She is a fascinating a part of nature who sometimes seems like during a pensive mood. She is additionally keen on the speaker’s song. The fascinating nymphs within the evening that come from the buds of flowers bring fragrance within the peaceful evening environment. To form the environment more soothing, the speaker’s song should be very soft like that of the murmur of the streams.
The only sound that the speaker listens is that of the cry of the bat and therefore the beetle. He aspires to travel to the ruined building in some lonely valley to observe the sweetness of the evening, but he's disturbed by the rain and therefore the wind. So, he decides to go to the mountainside to ascertain the descending evening. Within the end, the speaker admits that the charm of the evening should still bring peace and harmony and to inspire friendship, poets, science and lovers of the peace.
The application of the femininity in describing the evening and characterizing her is one among the strengths of Collins. Words and phrases like ‘chaste Eve’, ‘fancy’, ‘rose-lipped’, ‘nymph reserved’, and ‘maid composed’ are a number of the illustrations of the utilization of the femininity within the poem. These traits to the evening add the concept of an attention grabbing woman who is reserved and patient.
The poet has used the concept of the evening as how to place his view on the lady as contradictory figure, something mysterious and also generous. The evening is merging point of the daylight and therefore the sunset, in a way, it's a transition from light to dark, day to nighttime. Depicting the negative side of the evening, the poet says, it symbolically hides all the faces of the daytime whether good or bad. In its darkness, everything is same and mysterious. It is the eve that creates sure that subsequent day is certainly getting to be bright and sunny. Therein sense, evening is that the seed of the hope and lifetime of subsequent day.
Collins personifies evening during this poem as ‘chaste Eve’ which may be a Biblical allusion to Eve. The comparison of the evening to the Biblical Eve is ambiguous. If the fallen and flawed state of Eve is associated to the evening, then the evening becomes something negative and cursed state of the day when the brilliant light of the sun is missed and set. But, if the poet is comparing evening with the innocence and purity of Eve, then the evening means a gorgeous time of the day when everything involves the resting point with peace and harmony all around. The intention of the poet remains ambiguous.
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