Analysis of In Sark

Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)



Abreast and ahead of the sea is a crag's front cloven asunder
With strong sea-breach and with wasting of winds whence terror is
shed
As a shadow of death from the wings of the darkness on waters that
thunder
  Abreast and ahead.

At its edge is a sepulchre hollowed and hewn for a lone man's bed,
Propped open with rock and agape on the sky and the sea thereunder,
But roofed and walled in well from the wrath of them slept its dead.

Here might not a man drink rapture of rest, or delight above wonder,
Beholding, a soul disembodied, the days and the nights that fled,
With splendour and sound of the tempest around and above him and
under,
  Abreast and ahead?


Scheme axbxaB bab abxaB
Poetic Form
Metre 0100110110111010 11110110111101 1 1011110110101101 10 01001 111101100110111 110110011010011 11010110111111 11101110111010110 0100100100100111 110110100100110 10 01001
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 655
Words 125
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 3, 5
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 173
Words per stanza (avg) 41
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
103

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Swinburne wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, cannibalism, sado-masochism, and anti-theism. His poems have many common motifs, such as the ocean, time, and death. Several historical people are featured in his poems, such as Sappho ("Sapphics"), Anactoria ("Anactoria"), Jesus ("Hymn to Proserpine": Galilaee, La. "Galilean") and Catullus ("To Catullus"). more…

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