Analysis of Chorus of Eden Spirits
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 (Kelloe) – 1861 (Florence)
HEARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you
Turn, gently moved!
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,
O lost, beloved!
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,
They press and pierce:
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,—
Voice throbs in verse.
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden
A time ago:
God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden
To feed you so.
But now our right hand hath no cup remaining,
No work to do,
The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining
The whole earth through.
Most ineradicable stains, for showing
(Not interfused!)
That brighter colours were the world’s foregoing,
Than shall be used.
Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely
For years and years,
The noise beside you, dripping coldly, purely,
Of spirits’ tears.
The yearning to a beautiful denied you,
Shall strain your powers.
Ideal sweetnesses shall over-glide you,
Resumed from ours.
In all your music, our pathetic minor
Your ears shall cross;
And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner,
With sense of loss.
We shall be near you in your poet-languors
And wild extremes,
What time ye vex the desert with vain angers,
Or mock with dreams.
And when upon you, weary after roaming,
Death’s seal is put,
By the foregone ye shall discern the coming,
Through eyelids shut.
Scheme | ABACDEDFGHIHJAJAJBJKLMLNAOAOPQPQDRORJSJT |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (40%) |
Metre | 111111011 1101 101010101111 1101 10110011010 1101 1011011101 1101 11110101010 0101 11110101010 1111 111011111010 1111 010111010 0111 10010001110 11 1101001010 1111 11111110 1101 01011101010 1101 01010100011 11110 01111011 01110 011101001010 1111 011111111 1111 1111101101 0101 11110101110 1111 01011101010 1111 10111101010 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,410 |
Words | 224 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 40 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,009 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 220 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 06, 2023
- 1:07 min read
- 128 Views
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"Chorus of Eden Spirits" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10221/chorus-of-eden-spirits>.
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