Analysis of The Elfin Artist
Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)
In a glade of an elfin forest
When Sussex was Eden-new,
I came on an elvish painter
And watched as his picture grew,
A harebell nodded beside him.
He dipt his brush in the dew.
And it might be the wild thyme round him
That shone in the dark strange ring;
But his brushes were bees' antennae,
His knife was a wasp's blue sting;
And his gorgeous exquisite palette
Was a butterfly's fan-shaped wing.
And he mingled its powdery colours,
And painted the lights that pass,
On a delicate cobweb canvas
That gleamed like a magic glass,
And bloomed like a banner of elf-land,
Between two stalks of grass;
Till it shone like an angel's feather
With sky-born opal and rose,
And gold from the foot of the rainbow,
And colours that no man knows;
And I laughed in the sweet May weather,
Because of the themes he chose.
For he painted the things that matter,
The tints that we all pass by,
Like the little blue wreaths of incense
That the wild thyme breathes to the sky;
Or the first white bud of the hawthorn,
And the light in a blackbird's eye;
And the shadows on soft white cloud-peaks
That carolling skylarks throw,--
Dark dots on the slumbering splendours
That under the wild wings flow,
Wee shadows like violets trembling
On the unseen breasts of snow;
With petals too lovely for colour
That shake to the rapturous wings,
And grow as the bird draws near them,
And die as he mounts and sings,--
Ah, only those exquisite brushes
Could paint these marvellous things.
Scheme | XABACA CDXDXD EEEEXE BEFEBE BGEGXG EFEFDF BEXEEE |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 001111010 1101101 1111110 0111101 0110011 1111001 011101111 1100111 111001010 1110111 011010010 1010111 011011001 0100111 10100110 1110101 011010111 011111 11111110 1111001 01101101 011111 011001110 0110111 111001110 0111111 101011101 10111101 10111101 0010011 00111111 1111 11101001 1100111 111100100 1001111 11011011 11101001 01101111 0111101 110110010 11111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,468 |
Words | 268 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 164 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 99 Views
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"The Elfin Artist" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 15 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1181/the-elfin-artist>.
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