A single orange feather floats above an opening of warm dawn light in a dark cloudy sky.

Original artwork, not a still

Cato ‧ 1712

Joseph Addison

The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker describes a gloomy dawn: clouds hang low, the morning frowns, and daylight arrives heavily. That oppressive weather suits the day it announces, described as great and important and heavy with the fate of Cato and of Rome. Nature seems to darken in step with the stakes.

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