When the stars, at set of sun,
Watch you from on high.
Why not "at set of the sun"?
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2 Answers
It's a matter of meter. This is a line from a composition in very strict (not to say rigid) meter (the regularity and the rhyme suggest that popular hymns are the model):
/ - / - / - /
/ - / - / repeat ad lib.When the stars, at set of sun,
Watch you from on high;
When the light of morn has come,
Think the Lord is nighAll you do, and all you say,
He can see and hear;
When you work and when you play,
Think the Lord is near.&c
An extra the would spoil the meter.
answered Jun 25, 2013 at 5:04
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@Kris Archaic style poetry. That line could be "When the stars, with setting sun," but that alters the meaning.– Andrew Leach ♦Commented Jun 25, 2013 at 7:31
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@Kris It's not ungrammatical, just old-fashioned: "When the hurly-burly's done / When the battle's lost and won / That will be ere the set of sun." - Macbeth I, i Commented Jun 25, 2013 at 12:03
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@StoneyB: Right! Dah dah dah dah dah dah dah; dah dah dah dah dah; dah dah dah dah dah dah dah; dah dah dah dah dah. Howz that for poetry? (a joke) Or, "When StonyB the poet Sets his mind to write, The world stops still to notice, He's not really very bright"! (another joke. "Wucka, wucka," as Fozzie the Bear of Sesame Street would say) Commented Jun 25, 2013 at 17:46
Poetic license. Neither phrase would be used in everyday English. You'd just say, "The stars watch you from on high when the sun sets."
Sometimes you'd do that in poetry as well. :)
