Analysis of Scherzando

William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)



Down through the ancient Strand
The spirit of October, mild and boon
And sauntering, takes his way
This golden end of afternoon,
As though the corn stood yellow in all the land,
And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon.

Lo! the round sun, half-down the western slope -
Seen as along an unglazed telescope -
Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day:
Gifting the long, lean, lanky street
And its abounding confluences of being
With aspects generous and bland;
Making a thousand harnesses to shine
As with new ore from some enchanted mine,
And every horse's coat so full of sheen
He looks new-tailored, and every 'bus feels clean,
And never a hansom but is worth the feeing;
And every jeweller within the pale
Offers a real Arabian Night for sale;
And even the roar
Of the strong streams of toil, that pause and pour
Eastward and westward, sounds suffused -
Seems as it were bemused
And blurred, and like the speech
Of lazy seas on a lotus-haunted beach -
With this enchanted lustrousness,
This mellow magic, that (as a man's caress
Brings back to some faded face, beloved before,
A heavenly shadow of the grace it wore
Ere the poor eyes were minded to beseech)
Old things transfigures, and you hail and bless
Their looks of long-lapsed loveliness once more:
Till Clement's, angular and cold and staid,
Gleams forth in glamour's very stuffs arrayed;
And Bride's, her aery, unsubstantial charm
Through flight on flight of springing, soaring stone
Grown flushed and warm,
Laughs into life full-mooded and fresh-blown;
And the high majesty of Paul's
Uplifts a voice of living light, and calls -
Calls to his millions to behold and see
How goodly this his London Town can be!

For earth and sky and air
Are golden everywhere,
And golden with a gold so suave and fine
The looking on it lifts the heart like wine.
Trafalgar Square
(The fountains volleying golden glaze)
Shines like an angel-market. High aloft
Over his couchant Lions, in a haze
Shimmering and bland and soft,
A dust of chrysoprase,
Our Sailor takes the golden gaze
Of the saluting sun, and flames superb,
As once he flamed it on his ocean round.
The dingy dreariness of the picture-place,
Turned very nearly bright,
Takes on a luminous transiency of grace,
And shows no more a scandal to the ground.
The very blind man pottering on the kerb,
Among the posies and the ostrich feathers
And the rude voices touched with all the weathers
Of the long, varying year,
Shares in the universal alms of light.
The windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires,
The height and spread of frontage shining sheer,
The quiring signs, the rejoicing roofs and spires -
'Tis El Dorado--El Dorado plain,
The Golden City! And when a girl goes by,
Look! as she turns her glancing head,
A call of gold is floated from her ear!
Golden, all golden! In a golden glory,
Long-lapsing down a golden coasted sky,
The day, not dies but, seems
Dispersed in wafts and drifts of gold, and shed
Upon a past of golden song and story
And memories of gold and golden dreams.


Scheme ABCBAB DDCXEAFFGGEHHIIJJKKLLIIKLIMMXNXNLLLO PPFFPLXLXLLQRLSLRQLLTSLTLXUVXOULVOL
Poetic Form
Metre 110101 0101010101 01111 1101101 11011100101 00110110101 1011110101 11011110 1001111111 10011101 010101110 1110001 1001010011 1111110101 01001011111 111100100111 01001011101 010010101 10010100111 01001 1011111101 10010101 111001 010101 11011010101 110101 11010110101 11111010101 0100110111 1011010101 11101101 11111111 111000101 110110101 010111 1111110101 1101 101111011 00110011 101110101 1111010101 1101110111 110101 11010 0101011101 0101110111 0101 0101101 1111010101 101110001 1000101 0111 101010101 1001010101 1111111101 01010010101 110101 110100111 0111010101 010111101 0101001010 00110111010 1011001 100010111 010111010010 0101110101 01010010101 1101010101 01010010111 11110101 0111110101 10110001010 1101010101 011111 0101011101 01011101010 0100110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 2,937
Words 532
Sentences 14
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 36, 35
Lines Amount 77
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 791
Words per stanza (avg) 177
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:41 min read
101

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". more…

All William Ernest Henley poems | William Ernest Henley Books

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    "Scherzando" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40538/scherzando>.

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