Analysis of A Dedication
Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833 – 1870
They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds.
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed by storm;
From broken-up fountain heads, dash on
Dry deserts with long pent up passion--
Here rhyme was first framed without fashion,
Song shaped without form.
Whence gather'd?--The locust's glad chirrup
May furnish a stave;
The ring os rowel and stirrup,
The wash of a wave.
The chauntof a marsh frog in rushes
That chimes through the pauses and hushes
Of nightfall, the torrent that gushes,
The tempests that rave.
In the deep'ning of dawn, when it dapples
The dusk of the sky,
With streaks like the redd'ning of apples,
The ripening of rye.
To eastward, when cluster by cluster,
Dim stars and dull planets, that muster,
Wax wan in a world of white lustre
That spreads far and high.
In the gathering of night gloom o'er head, in
The still silent change,
All fire-flush'd when forest trees redden
On slopes of the range.
When the gnarl'd knotted trunks Eucalyptian
Seemed carved like weird columns Egyptian
With curious device--quaint inscription,
And heiroglyph strange.
In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles
'Twixt shadow and shine,
When each dew-laden air draught resembles
A long draught of wine;
When the skyline's blue burnished resistance
Makes deeper the dreamiest distance,
Some song in all hearts hath existence,--
Such songs have been mine.
Scheme | ABABCCABDEFEGHHEIJIJKACJALMLNNNLOPHPGHHPAQMQRRRQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011011 11111 01111011 0111 11100111010 010010010 11011 01101 10111111 01111 11011110 01111 110110111 110111110 111110110 11011 1100111 11001 0111010 01101 01011010 11101001 11010110 0111 001111111 01101 111011110 010011 110110110 110110110 110011110 11101 001001111010 01101 1101110110 11101 1011011 111110010 1100011010 011 001101011 1101 1111011010 01111 101110010 1100110 110111010 11111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,645 |
Words | 281 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 48 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,339 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 277 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 89 Views
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"A Dedication" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/134/a-dedication>.
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