Analysis of The Matin-song of Friar Tuck

Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)



I.
If souls could sing to heaven's high King
As blackbirds pipe on earth,
How those delicious courts would ring
With gusts of lovely mirth!
What white-robed throng could lift a song
So mellow with righteous glee
As this brown bird that all day long
Delights my hawthorn tree.
Hark! That's the thrush
With speckled breast
From yon white bush
Chaunting his best,
 Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!

II.
If earthly dreams be touched with gleams
Of Paradisal air,
Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance
Around our slumbers there;
Some breaths of may might drift our way
With scents of leaf and loam,
Some whistling bird at dawn be heard
From those old woods of home.
Hark! That's the thrush
With speckled breast
From yon white bush
Chaunting his best,
 Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!

III.
No King or priest shall mar my feast
Where'er my soul may range.
I have no fear of heaven's good cheer
Unless our Master change.
But when death's night is dying away,
If I might choose my bliss,
My love should say, at break of day,
With her first waking kiss:--
Hark! That's the thrush
With speckled breast,
From yon white bush
Chaunting his best,
 Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!  


Scheme abcbcdedeFGHGI aijijklxlFGHGI axmxmkikiFGHGI
Poetic Form
Metre 1 111111011 110111 11010111 111101 11111101 1101101 11111111 01111 1101 1101 1111 111 11111 1 11011111 111 11011111 011011 111111101 111101 11011111 111111 1101 1101 1111 111 11111 1 11111111 101111 111111011 0110101 111111001 111111 11111111 101101 1101 1101 1111 111 11111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,123
Words 210
Sentences 18
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 14, 14, 14
Lines Amount 42
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 300
Words per stanza (avg) 69
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

1:05 min read
31

Alfred Noyes

Alfred Noyes was an English poet best known for his ballads The Highwayman 1906 and The Barrel Organ more…

All Alfred Noyes poems | Alfred Noyes Books

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