Analysis of A Love By The Sea
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
Out of the starless night that covers me,
(O tribulation of the wind that rolls!)
Black as the cloud of some tremendous spell,
The susurration of the sighing sea
Sounds like the sobbing whisper of two souls
That tremble in a passion of farewell.
To the desires that trebled life in me,
(O melancholy of the wind that rolls!)
The dreams that seemed the future to foretell,
The hopes that mounted herward like the sea,
To all the sweet things sent on happy souls,
I cannot choose but bid a mute farewell.
And to the girl who was so much to me
(O lamentation of this wind that rolls!)
Since I may not the life of her compel,
Out of the night, beside the sounding sea,
Full of the love that might have blent our souls,
A sad, a last, a long, supreme farewell.
Scheme | ABCABC ABCABC ABCABC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110111101 101010111 1101110101 0110101 1101010111 110001011 10010110101 110010111 0111010101 011101101 1101111101 110111011 0101111111 1111111 1111011001 1101010101 11011111101 010101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 748 |
Words | 149 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 196 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 12, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 192 Views
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"A Love By The Sea" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40427/a-love-by-the-sea>.
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