Analysis of A Vision Of Beauty

George William Russell 1867 (Lurgan) – 1935 (Bournemouth)



Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the wondrous vision: through the star-mists overhead
Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light.
Many coloured shine the vapours: to the moon-eye far away
'Tis the fairy ring of twilight mid the spheres of night and day,
Girdling with a rainbow cincture round the planet where we go,
We and it together fleeting, poised upon the pearl    glow;
We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces
In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places.
Half our eyes behold the glory: half within the spirit's glow
Echoes of the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go.
By a hand of fire uplifted--to her star-strewn palace brought,
To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought:
Here of yore the ancient mother in the fire mists sank to rest,
And she built her dreams about her, rayed from out her burning breast:
Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,
Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,
And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,
And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,
And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath
As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death.
O'er the fields of space together following her flying traces,
In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad races
Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the day
When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away
Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold
Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told,
Lost within the mother's being. So the vision flamed and fled,
And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead.


Scheme AABBCCDDEEFFEEGGHHIIJJKKFFDDLLBB
Poetic Form
Metre 1111101010111010 1010101010001110 1011100100010101 101010101011101 1010101010100111 101010101010101 10101011011101 10101111011101 110111010111 10101010101011 1010101010101010 0010111010101110 1101010101010101 10101100011101 1011101001011101 101011100010101 1110101000101111 011010101110101 101110101010101 1010101010101001 001110111011101 001111100011101 001111101001101 101100111011101 10011101010001010 00100101101010010 101011101010101 101010101110101 1010011100010101 101010101010111 101010101010101 0010101010010111
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 2,001
Words 369
Sentences 7
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 32
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 51
Words per line (avg) 12
Letters per stanza (avg) 1,617
Words per stanza (avg) 372
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on April 11, 2023

1:51 min read
9

George William Russell

George William Russell who wrote under the pseudonym sometimes written AE or AE was an Irish nationalist writer editor critic poet and painter He was also a mystical writer and centre of a group of followers of theosophy in Dublin for many years more…

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