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User Rating: |
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8.9
/10
(57
votes)
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Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver feathered sleep
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
Walter de la Mare
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Read poems about / on: silver, fish, dog, moon, water, sleep, night, fishing, tree
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Comments about this poem (Silver
by
Walter de la Mare
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comments about this poem (Silver by
Walter de la Mare
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Anne Martin
(6/9/2009 2:53:00 PM) |
I won a speech competition at age 12 by reading this poem since then it has become a firm favourite
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Beki Birdsong
(12/24/2008 9:36:00 PM) |
I <3 it wen I was readin it it sent shivers down my back
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Andrew Lockley
(8/29/2008 6:13:00 PM) |
My favorite peom it inspired me to start writing.
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Amy Leung
(4/21/2007 2:03:00 PM) |
Hey guys, does anyone have a SUMMARY of this poem?
can you send it to me please? thanks!
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Nakul Ranjan
(3/4/2007 4:33:00 AM) |
I think ur the best poet writter
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Linda Armstrong
(11/28/2006 1:05:00 AM) |
Julie-Like the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, I must rear myself up to full height and admit that I am honored to write poetry for children, so eschew away. I eschew thesauri. I notice that I can read Lorca, so the Spanish words he uses must be pretty simple-but, ah! What he does with them...
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Linda Armstrong
(11/28/2006 12:57:00 AM) |
Gentle readers,
This lovely piece is not just for children. The figure of speech you seek is an extended metaphor (and a bit of a joke-poets relish literary humor) . King Midas in the old Greek tale turned everything to gold with a touch of his finger, rendering it lifeless. The very feminine moon in this poem brushes everything with her feet, or with her glance. Everything she sees in the poem is sleeping, except the harvest mouse, which obliquely suggests Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, and her daughter, who spent a portion of the year with Hades in the Underworld (dark-but filled with treasure) .
In the line you quote, 'By silver reeds in a silver stream' the light on the water is being compared to precious metal-transformed by the touch of a personified, female moon. If you think a bit about the treasures available to a dreamer-the riches of the unconscious-you will realize that the moon here is something of a muse. Like an artist (or the poet himself) , she transforms the ordinary world into a paradise that is richly strange-or, for this mystic, as most poets are, reveals a bit of its true nature.
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Julie Drew
(9/7/2006 2:13:00 PM) |
It's an image. Also there's a lot of assonance with long vowel sounds that make the poem sound haunted. And also the 's' sound repeats, which is also a haunting, whispery sound.
I teach fifth grade in a bilingual school, and always do a poetry unit. I use this poem in the beginning of the year to illustrate 'image' and have kids draw their favorite images. Lots of moons wearing silver shoes, and silver mice running by sleeping silver dogs. It's great fun.
Most of the stuff I teach is actually adult poetry-I eschew most stuff written for kids. But this poem and _The Listeners_ are in my private teaching collection.
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