Analysis of Names Upon a Stone: (Inscribed to G. L. Fagan, Esq.)
Henry Kendall 1839 (Australia) – 1882 (Sydney)
ACROSS bleak widths of broken sea
A fierce north-easter breaks,
And makes a thunder on the lea—
A whiteness of the lakes.
Here, while beyond the rainy stream
The wild winds sobbing blow,
I see the river of my dream
Four wasted years ago.
Narrara of the waterfalls,
The darling of the hills,
Whose home is under mountain walls
By many-luted rills!
Her bright green nooks and channels cool
I never more may see;
But, ah! the Past was beautiful—
The sights that used to be.
There was a rock-pool in a glen
Beyond Narrara’s sands;
The mountains shut it in from men
In flowerful fairy lands;
But once we found its dwelling-place—
The lovely and the lone—
And, in a dream, I stooped to trace
Our names upon a stone.
Above us, where the star-like moss
Shone on the wet, green wall
That spanned the straitened stream across,
We saw the waterfall—
A silver singer far away,
By folded hills and hoar;
Its voice is in the woods to-day—
A voice I hear no more.
I wonder if the leaves that screen
The rock-pool of the past
Are yet as soft and cool and green
As when we saw them last!
I wonder if that tender thing,
The moss, has overgrown
The letters by the limpid spring—
Our names upon the stone!
Across the face of scenes we know
There may have come a change—
The places seen four years ago
Perhaps would now look strange.
To you, indeed, they cannot be
What haply once they were:
A friend beloved by you and me
No more will greet us there.
Because I know the filial grief
That shrinks beneath the touch—
The noble love whose words are brief—
I will not say too much;
But often when the night-winds strike
Across the sighing rills,
I think of him whose life was like
The rock-pool’s in the hills.
A beauty like the light of song
Is in my dreams, that show
The grand old man who lived so long
As spotless as the snow.
A fitting garland for the dead
I cannot compass yet;
But many things he did and said
I never will forget.
In dells where once we used to rove
The slow, sad water grieves;
And ever comes from glimmering grove
The liturgy of leaves.
But time and toil have marked my face,
My heart has older grown
Since, in the woods, I stooped to trace
Our names upon the stone.
Scheme | ababcdcd efeaxaxa ghghijij klklmnmn opopqjqJ drdraxax ststuauf vdvdwxwx yzyzijiJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111101 011101 01010101 010101 11010101 011101 11010111 110101 11010 010101 11110101 11011 01110101 110111 11011100 011111 11011001 0111 01011011 01101 11111101 010001 00011111 1010101 01110111 110111 1101101 11010 01010101 110101 11100111 011111 11010111 011101 11110101 111111 11011101 01101 0101011 1010101 01011111 111101 01011101 011111 11011101 11110 01011101 111111 011101001 110101 01011111 111111 11010111 010101 11111111 011001 01010111 101111 01111111 110101 01010101 110101 11011101 110101 01111111 011101 010111001 010011 11011111 111101 10011111 1010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,128 |
Words | 416 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 72 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 187 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:04 min read
- 90 Views
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"Names Upon a Stone: (Inscribed to G. L. Fagan, Esq.)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17536/names-upon-a-stone%3A-%28inscribed-to-g.-l.-fagan%2C-esq.%29>.
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