Analysis of To Jane: The Recollection
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)
I.
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up,--to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,--
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.
II.
We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean’s foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.
III.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced;
And, soothed by every azure breath,
That under Heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own,
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.
IV.
How calm it was!—the silence there
By such a chain was bound
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain waste,
To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,--
A spirit interfused around
A thrilling, silent life,--
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there
Was one fair form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
V.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,--
Each seemed as ’twere a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day--
In which the lovely forests grew,
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water’s love
Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.
Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water’s breast,
Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth expressed;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,
Which from the mind’s too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.
Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley’s mind,
Than calm in waters, seen.
Scheme | ABCDBEDEC AXFGFHIHIJXJX AKLXLMNONHPHP QRSXSXTXTULULSQSQQRQX PACAVWIWITRTRXKXXQYQYOVMVXGDGAXAXZYZY |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 10111101 11000111 0100111 11000111 1111111 0101101 11011111 01110101 1 11010110 110101 01011011 010011 010010101 010111 01010101 011101 111101001 110101 11010101 01110 1 11010111 010101 10111111 11001 011100101 1101011 11000101 110111 11011101 111101 11100101 010111 1 11110101 110111 11001010 110101 001000100 011111 11110111 011111 11100101 101101 1011001101 010101 010101 010101 1100111 1010101 01110101 010101 11111111 01010 1 11010111 100101 11110101 100101 011101 100111 11010111 010101 01010101 100101 10110101 110101 1101011 010111 011100101 110101 111010101 110111 0110101 111101 011101 1111 1100101 010101 11010111 101101 1100101 111101 011100111 110101 11011101 111101 11110101 010101 1111011 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,644 |
Words | 508 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 13, 13, 21, 37 |
Lines Amount | 93 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 422 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 100 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:32 min read
- 60 Views
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"To Jane: The Recollection" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29308/to-jane%3A-the-recollection>.
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