Observation Essay

H.D.’s “Night” and Subtle Formal Intricacy as Mirror to Image

In H.D.’s poem, “Night,” the speaker describes the slow breaking of flower petals from

their stem at the hands of personified night, who is both agent and addressee of the poem. This

brief essay will explore three significant formal layers observed in “Night”: grammar, imagery,

and sounds.

“Night” is comprised of four stanzas and two sentences; one sentence stretching from

stanza one to stanza three while the other dwells only in stanza four. In the first stanza, the

speaker’s thought begins in typical grammatical fashion; it immediately begins with the agent of

the sentence followed by the enjambment of the two-fold action, patient, and direction of the

action, “The night has cut / each from each / and curled the petals / back from the stalk / and

under it in a crisp row” (H.D., lines 1-5). The second sentence, too, adheres to conventional

syntactical rules, but changes the tense from historical past to a current or stative present. After

the first stanza starts the action, the next two stanzas grammatically continue this thought;

however, the actor, “night,” is not mentioned again. What does follow are layers and layers of

adverbial prepositional phrases, prolonging the action of the first stanza and giving it direction.

Breaking from traditional use, the speaker uses nine total prepositional phrases in one sentence.

Repeated in this sentence are the prepositions “under” (lines 5, 6, 7, 10, 11), “back” (lines 4, 8,

12, 14), “from” (lines 2, 4, 9), and “till” (lines 7, 8, 11, 13, 14).

Within the fragmented lines and enjambed sentences, the images of this poem are driven

by the action unfolding, punctuated by named objects. Despite the poem’s 75 words (excluding

11 articles and 3 conjunctions), only 18 (24%) of them are nouns, while 25 (33%) are

prepositions and 13 (17%) are verbs. In fact, throughout the poem, there is approximately one

noun per line, usually appearing at the end of the line after the verb or preposition has provided
Observation Essay

active, directional, or qualitative context. The most persevering image from this poem is that of

the “petals” from line 3 “curl[ing]… / back from the stalk” (H.D. lines 3-4). This close-focus

image is extended by the continuing intimacy of the “unfaltering pace” of the curling under (line

6), the bending under “till the rinds break” (line 7), and separate from the stalk of the flower.

This movement is retold in stanza three, in which the curling and bending bends the petals back

until they “drop upon the earth, / back till they are all broken” (lines 13-14). The speaker settles

the reader’s attention on the petals, their shape, their direction and connection to the stem.

Bending, breaking, and separation are key movements that drive the images formed.

Hand in hand with imagery of this poem is sound. Sound is one of the most intimate,

delicate features of this poem because of the subtlety of its position. More specifically, voiceless

consonants drive the creation of imagery of this poem, especially the sounds /k/, /t/, /p/, and /s/.

Emphasized in the first line by the last word, “cut,” the sounds /k/ and /t/, alongside the swiftness

of the word, focus attention on the slight, voiceless slices of the mouth as it carves air to make

sound. The /k/ sound continues to be a quiet, violent presence in the repetition of the words

“back” (H.D. lines 4, 8, 12, 14) and “break” or “broken” (lines 7, 14). Furthermore, the sound /p/

is associated with the focal image of petals, appearing in the words, “petals” (lines 3, 16), “crisp”

(line 5), “pace” (lines 6, 10), “parted” (line 9), and “drop” (line 13). In contrast, the sound /b/,

which is produced identically to /p/ except for voicing, is associated with disruption, both

visually and grammatically, as seen in “back” (lines 4, 8, 12, 14), “break” (line 7), “bent” (lines

8, 12), “broken” (line 14), “but” (line 18), and “branch” (line 20). These consonants mirror the

narrow, fine-grained focus of the slow movement of flower petals. The pushing and slicing of air

to form little puffs and breaks draw the reader’s gaze even closer from mere naming of objects as

“petals” and “stalks” to their very soft, delicate texture and abrupt, forceful separation.