Lyric Poem · Nature
The Evening Star
1Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,
2Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,
3Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
4The evening star, the star of love and rest!
5And then anon she doth herself divest
6Of all her radiant garments, and reclines
7Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,
8With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.
9O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
10My morning and my evening star of love!
11My best and gentlest lady! even thus,
12As that fair planet in the sky above,
13Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,
14And from thy darkened window fades the light.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Evening Star” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — quilloak.com/poems/the-evening-star
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Evening Star
- Poet
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Love, Dreams & Sleep
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
- Source record
- PoetryDBThe Evening Star by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 5a210b5766cafc35…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.