Analysis of Winter Heavens

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



Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me, the dead revive.
Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,
Life glistens on the river of the death.
It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,
Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs
Of radiance, the radiance enrings:
And this is the soul's haven to have felt.


Scheme ABBAABBACCDEED
Poetic Form
Metre 1101111101 1101110101 110111010101 110110111 11101111101 01110101 1101111111 0101010101 1101111101 111010101 1111010111 1101111101 110001001 0110110111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 615
Words 120
Sentences 7
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 482
Words per stanza (avg) 118
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
55

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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