Analysis of The Death Of Winter

George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)



When April with her wild blue eye
Comes dancing over the grass,
And all the crimson buds so shy
Peep out to see her pass;
As lightly she loosens her showery locks
And flutters her rainy wings;
Laughingly stoops
To the glass of the stream,
And loosens and loops
Her hair by the gleam,
While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks
Go frolicking round in rings; -
Then Winter, he who tamed the fly,
Turns on his back and prepares to die,
For he cannot live longer under the sky.

Down the valleys glittering green,
Down from the hills in snowy rills,
He melts between the border sheen
And leaps the flowery verges!
He cannot choose but brighten their hues,
And tho' he would creep, he fain must leap,
For the quick Spring spirit urges.
Down the vale and down the dale
He leaps and lights, till his moments fail,
Buried in blossoms red and pale,
While the sweet birds sing his dirges!

O Winter! I'd live that life of thine,
With a frosty brow and an icicle tongue,
And never a song my whole life long, -
Were such delicious burial mine!
To die and be buried, and so remain
A wandering brook in April's train,
Fixing my dying eyes for aye
On the dawning brows of maiden May.


Scheme ABABCDEFEFCDAAA GBGXXXXHHHB IXXIJJAX
Poetic Form
Metre 11010111 1101001 01010111 111101 110110011 0100101 1001 101101 01001 01101 11011001101 1100101 11011101 111100111 11101101001 10101001 11010101 11010101 01010010 110111011 011111111 10111010 1010101 110111101 10010101 1011111 110111111 10101011001 010011111 010101001 1101100101 010010101 10110111 101011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,182
Words 224
Sentences 8
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 15, 11, 8
Lines Amount 34
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 306
Words per stanza (avg) 74
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 03, 2023

1:07 min read
47

George Meredith

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. more…

All George Meredith poems | George Meredith Books

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