Analysis of To A Cat
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
STATELY, kindly, lordly friend,
Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.
All your wondrous wealth of hair,
Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand's caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.
Dogs may fawn on all and some
As they come;
You, a friend of loftier mind,
Answer friends alone in kind.
Just your foot upon my hand
Softly bids it understand.
Morning round this silent sweet
Garden-seat
Sheds its wealth of gathering light,
Thrills the gradual clouds with might,
Changes woodland, orchard, heath,
Lawn, and garden there beneath.
Fair and dim they gleamed below:
Now they glow
Deep as even your sunbright eyes,
Fair as even the wakening skies.
Can it not or can it be
Now that you give thanks to see ?
May not you rejoice as I,
Seeing the sky
Change to heaven revealed, and bid
Earth reveal the heaven it hid
All night long from stars and moon,
Now the sun sets all in tune?
What within you wakes with day
Who can say?
All too little may we tell,
Friends who like each other well,
What might haply, if we might,
Bid us read our lives aright.
Wild on woodland ways your sires
Flashed like fires;
Fair as flame and fierce and fleet
As with wings on wingless feet
Shone and sprang your mother, free,
Bright and brave as wind or sea.
Free and proud and glad as they,
Here to-day
Rests or roams their radiant child,
Vanquished not, but reconciled,
Free from curb of aught above
Save the lovely curb of love.
Love through dreams of souls divine
Fain would shine
Round a dawn whose light and song
Then should right our mutual wrong---
Speak, and seal the love-lit law
Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw.
Dreams were theirs; yet haply may
Dawn a day
When such friends and fellows born,
Seeing our earth as fair at morn,
May for wiser love's sake see
More of heaven's deep heart than we.
Scheme | AABBAX CCDDXX EEFFGG HHDDII JJKKLL MMNNOO PPQQDA XXHHLL PPRRSS TTUUVV PPWWLL |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101011 01 1111101 10011101 1011101 1010111 1110111 101 1010101 1010111 11100101 11100100 1111101 111 10111001 1010101 1110111 101101 1011101 101 11111001 10100111 101101 1010101 1011101 111 1110111 1110011 1111111 1111111 1110111 1001 11100101 10101011 1111101 1011101 1011111 111 1110111 1111101 111111 1111011 111111 1110 1110101 111111 1011101 1011111 1010111 111 11111001 101110 1111101 1010111 1111101 111 1011101 111101001 1010111 101011 101111 101 1110101 101011111 1110111 11101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,986 |
Words | 354 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 66 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 138 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 1:47 min read
- 194 Views
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"To A Cat" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1437/to-a-cat>.
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