Analysis of Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life
Henry David Thoreau 1817 (Concord) – 1862 (Concord)
Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of summer past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial,—purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God's cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter's task again.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOBPQRSTUNVCWXYZ1 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0101011101 1101011101 11110100 11010111 110100111 0101000111 1110111100 1101010101 1011000101 1001110101 11001010101 0101010111 0101010101 10010011101 101011001 010101011 110101111 0111011011 10001011101 1111111101 1101001111 010101011 0111011111 001101011 11011111 010110001 1101011101 0101010011 1111010011 1101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,220 |
Words | 225 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 30 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 992 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 222 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 04, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 121 Views
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"Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17360/within-the-circuit-of-this-plodding-life>.
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