Analysis of The Rock Of Cader Idris
Felicia Dorothea Hemans 1793 (Liverpool, Lancashire) – 1835 (Dublin, County Dublin)
I LAY on that rock where the storms have their dwelling,
The birthplace of phantoms, the home of the cloud;
Around it for ever deep music is swelling,
The voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud.
'Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming,
Of wild waves and breezes, that mingled their moan;
Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulfs faintly gleaming;
And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone.
I lay there in silence–a spirit came o'er me;
Man's tongue hath no language to speak what I saw:
Things glorious, unearthly, passed floating before me,
And my heart almost fainted with rapture and awe.
I viewed the dread beings around us that hover,
Though veil'd by the mists of mortality's breath;
And I called upon darkness the vision to cover,
For a strife was within me of madness and death.
I saw them–the powers of the wind and the ocean,
The rush of whose pinion bears onward the storms;
Like the sweep of the white-rolling wave was their motion,
I felt their dim presence,–but knew not their forms !
I saw them–the mighty of ages departed–
The dead were around me that night on the hill:
From their eyes, as they passed, a cold radiance they darted,–
There was light on my soul, but my heart's blood was chill.
I saw what man looks on, and dies–but my spirit
Was strong, and triumphantly lived through that hour;
And, as from the grave, I awoke to inherit
A flame all immortal, a voice, and a power !
Day burst on that rock with the purple cloud crested,
And high Cader Idris rejoiced in the sun;–
But O ! what new glory all nature invested,
When the sense which gives soul to her beauty was won !
Scheme | ABABACAC DXDXEFEF GHGHIJXJ KEKEIGIG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111011110 0111001101 011110110110 01101011001 10111110010 11101011011 111011111010 011011110101 1110100101101 11111011111 1100010110011 01111011001 110110011110 11101111 0110110010110 101101111001 1110101010010 01111011001 1011011011110 11111011111 111010110010 01001111101 11111101100110 111111111111 111111011110 110010011110 011011011010 011010010010 111111010110 011101001 111110110010 101111101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,638 |
Words | 299 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 314 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 75 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:31 min read
- 92 Views
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"The Rock Of Cader Idris" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13611/the-rock-of-cader-idris>.
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