Analysis of Sonnet on Reading Burns' Mountain Daisy

Helen Maria Williams 1761 (London) – 1827



While soon the "garden's flaunting flowers" decay,
And, scatter'd on the earth, neglected lie,
The "Mountain Daisy," cherish'd by the ray
A poet drew from heav'n, shall never die.
Ah! like that lovely flower the poet rose!
'Mid penury's bare soil and bitter gale;
He felt each storm that on the mountain blows,
Nor ever knew the shelter of the vale.
By Genius in her native vigour nurst,
On Nature with impassion'd look he gazed,
Then through the cloud of adverse fortune burst
Indignant, and in light unborrow'd blaz'd.
Shield from rude sorrow, SCOTIA! shield thy bard:--
His heav'n-taught numbers Fame herself will guard.


Scheme ABABCDCDEEEEEE
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101001 0101010101 0101010101 0101111101 11110100101 11110101 1111110101 1101010101 110001011 1101010111 1101101101 01000111 1111010111 1111010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 618
Words 108
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 483
Words per stanza (avg) 104
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
115

Helen Maria Williams

Helen Maria Williams was a British novelist poet and translator of French-language works A religious dissenter she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution she was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror but nonetheless spent much of the rest of her life in France A controversial figure in her own time the young Williams was favorably portrayed in a 1787 poem by William Wordsworth but she was portrayed by other writers as irresponsibly politically radical and even as sexually wanton more…

All Helen Maria Williams poems | Helen Maria Williams Books

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    I wandered lonely as a _______ that floats on high o'er vales and hills
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