Analysis of To The Nile

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



Month after month the gathered rains descend
Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells,
And from the desert’s ice-girt pinnacles
Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend
On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend.
Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells
By Nile’s aereal urn, with rapid spells
Urging those waters to their mighty end.
O’er Egypt’s land of Memory floods are level
And they are thine, O Nile--and well thou knowest
That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil
And fruits and poisons spring where’er thou flowest.
Beware, O Man--for knowledge must to thee,
Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.


Scheme ABBAABBACACADD
Poetic Form
Metre 1101010101 1011011 01010111 1101010101 1101111101 11110100101 11111101 1011011101 11111001110 0111110111 11010101110 010101111 0111110111 1011110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 627
Words 105
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 498
Words per stanza (avg) 103
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

31 sec read
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Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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