Analysis of The Herons Of Elmwood. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fifth)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Warm and still is the summer night,
As here by the river's brink I wander;
White overhead are the stars, and white
The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.
Silent are all the sounds of day;
Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons winging their way
O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.
Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass
To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,
Sing him the song of the green morass;
And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.
Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,
And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament we discern,
And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.
Sing of the air, and the wild delight
Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you,
The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight
Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you.
Of the landscape lying so far below,
With its towns and rivers and desert places;
And the splendor of light above, and the glow
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.
Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,
Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,
And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.
Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,
Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting,
Some one hath lingered to meditate,
And send him unseen this friendly greeting;
That many another hath done the same,
Though not by a sound was the silence broken;
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH AIAI JFJF DBXB KHKH LMLM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 10110101 1110101110 110110101 0100110110 10110111 1011101110 00110101011 10010100110 1111011011 11100110110 110110101 00111001010 1101001101 001011010110 11001101101 010010011110 110100101 11110011011 0111001011 10110101111 101101101 11101001010 00101101001 101001010010 1111101 11101110 10111111 0111110010010 1111111111 10110101110 11110110 0110111010 1100101101 11101101010 01011011 10101011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,524 |
Words | 288 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 135 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 63 Views
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"The Herons Of Elmwood. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fifth)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18877/the-herons-of-elmwood.-%28birds-of-passage.-flight-the-fifth%29>.
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