Analysis of Music: An Ode
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
WAS it light that spake from the darkness,
or music that shone from the word,
When the night was enkindled with sound
of the sun or the first-born bird?
Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage
of seasons that fall and rise,
Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh,
and blinded with light that dies,
Lived not surely till music spake,
and the spirit of life was heard.
Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,
Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man,
and the thrall was free.
Slave of nature and serf of time,
the bondman of life and death,
Dumb with passionless patience that breathed
but forlorn and reluctant breath,
Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer,
and communed aloud with the sea.
Morning spake, and he heard:
and the passionate silent noon
Kept for him not silence:
and soft from the mounting moon
Fell the sound of her splendour,
heard as dawn's in the breathless night,
Not of men but of birds whose note
bade man's soul quicken and leap to light:
And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness
of earth were as chords in tune.
Scheme | ABXBXCXCXB DXDXEXEFD BGXGFHXHAG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111010 11011101 1011111 10110111 10101010 1101101 111101011 0101111 11101101 00101111 1010110101111 111101011 00111 11100111 011101 1111011 10100101 11011110 0101101 101011 00100101 111110 0110101 101101 11100101 11111111 111100111 0011110010010 1101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,220 |
Words | 199 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 9, 10 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 280 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 66 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 90 Views
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