Analysis of The May Magnificat



May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season-

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?-
Growth in every thing-

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all-

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.


Scheme AABB CCDD DDCX DDEE DDFF GGHH EEII JJKK LLCC HXMM NNHX OOBB
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1110101 1110101 011010 101110 1101 101011 1101010 1010001 111011010 10111010 111 010110 11001010 0011110 10111 101001 1011010 1011010 111010 101010 10110111 1010101 010101 011111 11101110 1011 11111 1010 11001111 101111 111001 1001 1111111 10101 11111 1100101 1111011 1101010 01001110 110110 011011 11011111 0101 110101 1100111001 11001111 101001 01110010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,371
Words 234
Sentences 10
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 91
Words per stanza (avg) 19
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

1:11 min read
523

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Reverend Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S. more…

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