Analysis of Ballade Of Midsummer Days And Nights
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,
All secret shadows and mystic lights,
Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
There's a music of bells from the trampling teams,
Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,
The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
A soul from the honeysuckle strays,
And the nightingale as from prophet heights
Sings to the Earth of her million Mays -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
And it's O, for my dear and the charm that stays -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
It's O, for my Love and the dark that plights -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
Scheme | abaBbcaC abaBbcbC abaBbcbC bBaC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101011001011 0111001011 0011110101 11011101 011100101 1011010111 11110011 110111101 011110111 011100101 0111011 11011101 00110011 11010101 1101001001 110111101 10101110101 1110011 011111011 11011101 01101001 0010011101 110110101 110111101 01111100111 11011101 1111100111 110111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,153 |
Words | 209 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 229 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 52 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 48 Views
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"Ballade Of Midsummer Days And Nights" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40446/ballade-of-midsummer-days-and-nights>.
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