Analysis of Rumors from an Aeolian Harp

Henry David Thoreau 1817 (Concord) – 1862 (Concord)



There is a vale which none hath seen,
Where foot of man has never been,
Such as here lives with toil and strife,
An anxious and a sinful life.
There every virtue has its birth,
Ere it descends upon the earth,
And thither every deed returns,
Which in the generous bosom burns.

There love is warm, and youth is young,
And poetry is yet unsung.
For Virtue still adventures there,
And freely breathes her native air.

And ever, if you hearken well,
You still may hear its vesper bell,
And tread of high-souled men go by,
Their thoughts conversing with the sky.


Scheme XXAABBCC DDEE FFGG
Poetic Form
Metre 11011111 11111101 11111101 11000101 110010111 11010101 01100101 100100101 11110111 01001101 11010101 01010101 0101111 11111101 01111111 11010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 555
Words 102
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 145
Words per stanza (avg) 34
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 14, 2023

30 sec read
67

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. more…

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