Analysis of Lenore
Edgar Allan Poe 1809 (Boston) – 1849 (Baltimore)
Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!- a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read- the funeral song be sung!-
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her- that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read?- the requiem how be sung
By you- by yours, the evil eye,- by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"
Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong.
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy
bride.
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes
The life still there, upon her hair- the death upon her eyes.
"Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of
Heaven!
Let no bell toll, then,- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I!- to-night my heart is light!- no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!"
Scheme | AABBCCC DDCCC EEDXDFFF GGXGHHFX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101010101010 1011010111010010 0111111111110 11110101111101 1101001110100111 1101011110111 01100101011111 11101010100101 01110101110111 1101001110100111 111101011101001 11110100110111 11111010101 11111100011111 01011101111101 1011101111111 1 1001001111101 01010101110101 01110101010101 11110100101110 111001011101010 11011010101011 10 11111101011101 1101111111011 0111111111111 110101011010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,675 |
Words | 321 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 5, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 44 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 305 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 77 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 1,136 Views
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"Lenore" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8450/lenore>.
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