Analysis of Moonlight
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
As a pale phantom with a lamp
Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
Mysterious chambers of the air.
Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
And at the windows seen again.
Until at last, serene and proud
In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
Supreme as Empress of the Night.
I look, but recognize no more
Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
Is an enchanted avenue.
All things are changed. One mass of shade,
The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
I walk as in a foreign town.
The very ground beneath my feet
Is clothed with a diviner air;
While marble paves the silent street
And glimmers in the empty square.
Illusion! Underneath there lies
The common life of every day;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober gray.
In vain we look, in vain uplift
Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind;
We see but what we have the gift
Of seeing; what we bring we find.
Scheme | ABAB CXCX DEDE FGFG HIHI JBJB KLKL MNMN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (88%) |
Metre | 10110101 0111101 11010101 010010101 110010101 11110111 010100101 01010101 01110101 01010101 11010011 01110101 1111011 10010111 0101111 1101010 11111111 01111101 1101001 11100101 01010111 111011 11010101 01000101 0100111 010111001 1001010 11110101 01110110 1011101111 11111101 11011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,060 |
Words | 199 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 103 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 198 Views
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"Moonlight" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18686/moonlight>.
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