ODE TO EVENING BY WILLIAM COLLINS
William Collins is a great pre-romantic
poet. He is famous for the rare and precious quality of his poems. His 'Ode to
Evening' is one of the finest odes in English Literature. It is full of
melancholy. It presents a beautiful picture of a quiet evening.
'Ode to Evening' presents the picture of
the poet's melancholic mood. Love of the quiet evening is the emotion of the
poem. The beauty of the evening is incarnated in its quietness. The poem opens
with the picture of personified evening:
''If
aught of oaten stop or pastoral song,
May
hope, chaste Eve, to sooth thy modest ear,
Like....................................................................''
The personification of evening is central
to the poem. It has been developed in three phases. In the beginning part of
the poem the poet presents the quietness of evening with apt images. In the
middle part of the poem the poet moves to a solitary place to feel evening on
his nerves. For such a move he prefers open spot and a mountain hut. The last
part of the poem is devoted to the powers of evening and man's tribute to it.
In this poem the poet addresses the
evening. He says that he would try to satisfy her ears by his music. He calls
upon her to come and to help him so that he could sing softly. To sing the song
for evening the poet wants to move to a solitary place. The poet is of the view
that the evening enriches imaginative faculty of human being.
The present poem contains thirteen stanzas
of four lines each. The stanzaic pattern is Miltonic. This pattern produces
hypnotic effect. The use of personification, adjectives and epithets is vital
to the meaning of the poem. The absence of rhyme makes it a natural poem.
Thus this is a beautiful poem. Here man
and nature are admirably brought together. It is full of many delicate
descriptions of nature and melancholy. It is lyricism that has made this poem
highly readable and enjoyable.
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