Analysis of Quia Nominor Leo: Sonnets
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
I.
WHAT part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast,
Which hadst the world for pasture, and for scope
And compass of thine homicidal hope
The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast
Of souls subdued from west to sunless east,
From blackening north to bloodred south aslope,
All servile; earth for footcloth of the pope,
And heaven for chancel-ceiling of the priest;
Thou that hadst earth by right of rack and rod,
Thou that hadst Rome because thy name was God,
And by thy creed’s gift heaven wherein to dwell;
Heaven laughs with all his light and might above
That earth has cast thee out of faith and love;
Thy part is but the hollow dream of hell.
The light of life has faded from thy cause,
High priest of heaven and hell and purgatory:
Thy lips are loud with strains of oldworld story,
But the red prey was rent out of thy paws
Long since and they that dying brake down thy laws
Have with the fires of death-enkindled glory
Put out the flame that faltered on thy hoary
High altars, waning with the world’s applause.
This Italy was Dante’s Bruno died
Here Campanella, too sublime for pride,
Endured thy God’s worst here, and hence went home.
And what art thou, that time’s full tide should shrink
For thy sake downward? What art thou, to think
Thy God shall give thee back for birthright Rome?
Scheme | XABBAABBACCDEED XFFGGFFGHHIJJI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 11111101001 1101110011 010110101 01010101101 110111111 110011111 110111101 0101110101 1111111101 1111011111 01111100111 10111110101 1111111101 1111010111 0111110111 11110010100 1111111110 1011111111 11011101111 1101011110 11011101110 1101010101 110011101 101010111 0111110111 0111111111 1111011111 111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,284 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 14 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 510 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 119 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 88 Views
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"Quia Nominor Leo: Sonnets" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1386/quia-nominor-leo%3A-sonnets>.
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