Analysis of The Wan Sun Westers, Faint And Slow
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
The wan sun westers, faint and slow;
The eastern distance glimmers gray;
An eerie haze comes creeping low
Across the little, lonely bay;
And from the sky-line far away
About the quiet heaven are spread
Mysterious hints of dying day,
Thin, delicate dreams of green and red.
And weak, reluctant surges lap
And rustle round and down the strand.
No other sound . . . If it should hap,
The ship that sails from fairy-land!
The silken shrouds with spells are manned,
The hull is magically scrolled,
The squat mast lives, and in the sand
The gold prow-griffin claws a hold.
It steals to seaward silently;
Strange fish-folk follow thro' the gloom;
Great wings flap overhead; I see
The Castle of the Drowsy Doom
Vague thro' the changeless twilight loom,
Enchanted, hushed. And ever there
She slumbers in eternal bloom,
Her cushions hid with golden hair.
Scheme | ABABBCBC DEDEECEX FGFGGHGH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111101 01010101 11011101 01010101 01011101 010101011 010011101 110011101 01010101 01010101 11011111 01111101 01011111 01110001 01110001 01110101 11110100 11110101 11110111 01010101 110111 01010101 1100101 01011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 829 |
Words | 145 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 222 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 43 sec read
- 84 Views
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"The Wan Sun Westers, Faint And Slow" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40560/the-wan-sun-westers%2C-faint-and-slow>.
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