Analysis of Fragments Written For Hellas
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)
I.
Fairest of the Destinies,
Disarray thy dazzling eyes:
Keener far thy lightnings are
Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest,
And the smile thou wearest
Wraps thee as a star
Is wrapped in light.
II.
Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn
From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,
Or could the morning shafts of purest light
Again into the quivers of the Sun
Be gathered—could one thought from its wild flight
Return into the temple of the brain
Without a change, without a stain,--
Could aught that is, ever again
Be what it once has ceased to be,
Greece might again be free!
III.
A star has fallen upon the earth
Mid the benighted nations,
A quenchless atom of immortal light,
A living spark of Night,
A cresset shaken from the constellations.
Swifter than the thunder fell
To the heart of Earth, the well
Where its pulses flow and beat,
And unextinct in that cold source
Burns, and on ... course
Guides the sphere which is its prison,
Like an angelic spirit pent
In a form of mortal birth,
Till, as a spirit half-arisen
Shatters its charnel, it has rent,
In the rapture of its mirth,
The thin and painted garment of the Earth,
Ruining its chaos—a fierce breath
Consuming all its forms of living death.
Scheme | AXXBCCBC AXDCDCEEXFF AGHCCHIICJJDCGDCGGKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 1010100 0111001 1011101 101111 00111 11101 1101 1 11100101 110010101 1101011101 010101101 1101111111 0101010101 01010101 11111001 11111111 110111 1 011100101 1001010 011010101 010111 011010010 1010101 1011101 1110101 010111 1011 10111110 1110101 0011101 110101010 1011111 0010111 0101010101 100110011 0101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,175 |
Words | 218 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 11, 20 |
Lines Amount | 39 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 315 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 72 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 91 Views
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"Fragments Written For Hellas" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29110/fragments-written-for-hellas>.
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