Walter de la Mare's Silver

Moon Bath

Aug 30, 2008 Linda Sue Grimes

British poet Walter de la Mare captures a night scene wherein the moonlight has bathed everything in silver.

Walter de la Mare’s “Silver” is an innovative sonnet, consisting of seven rimed couplets. Its theme reveals the mysterious, fantastic world that appears on a silent night with the moon shining brightly upon the landscape.

First Couplet

The first couplet sets the scene by letting the reader know that the time is night, and the moon is shining. But the speaker dramatizes the moon’s activity by claiming that the “moon / Walks the night.” Instead of merely shining, the moon is walking, and she is walking in silver slippers—he uses the quaint British dialect “shoon” for “shoes” which creates a marvelous rime with “moon.”

The moon in her silver slippers walks “slowly” and “silently.” Serenity and peace emanate from those two lines, and anyone who has had the pleasure of contemplatively observing such a moon-drenched scene will appreciate this recapturing of that experience.

Second Couplet

While in the introductory couplet, the moon is walking slowly and silently in her silver slippers, the second couplet finds her looking at the fruit trees, perhaps apple or peach trees, and observing that they appear to be silver—both the fruit and the trees.

The metaphor of the moon wearing silver slippers creates a far-reaching expansion in this night scene. The glow of those silver shoes adds a rich silver sheen to everything it touches.

Third Couplet

The speaker continues his drama in silver by remarking that the windows of the cottages one at time catch those silvery beams; the casements are silver, and the thatch roofs are silver. Just as the landscape with fruit trees are all swimming in silver, so are the very cottages, in which the speaker and his neighbors reside.

Fourth Couplet

The speaker then dramatizes the sleeping dog, who has not escaped this silver bathing, even though he is “[c]ouched in his kennel, like a log.” Because of this mystical act of Divine artistry, the dog’s paws are turned silver from the magical glow of the moon’s walking in silver slippers.

Fifth Couplet

The speaker now moves from the more domestic silver showering to one more out in nature. He sees that the “white breasts” of doves that are “peep[ing] out from “their shadowy coat” are also bathed in the silver glow.

Sixth Couplet

Continuing his observation of nature’s creatures, the speaker reports, “A harvest mouse goes scampering by, / With silver claws, and silver eye.” Even the tiny rodents of the field cannot escape the rinsing in silver that those omnipresent “shoon” splash.

Seventh Couplet

Finally, the speaker avers that even the fish in a stream submit to a silver soaking. As they seem to stand perfectly still, they “gleam” with the silver as do the “reeds” and the stream itself.

All three, fish, reeds, and stream are transformed with the rest of the landscape by the luminous blaze of silver.

The copyright of the article Walter de la Mare's Silver in Poetry is owned by Linda Sue Grimes. Permission to republish Walter de la Mare's Silver in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Walter de la Mare