Analysis of Musings
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
I sat by my window one night,
And watched how the stars grew high;
And the earth and skies were a splendid sight
To a sober and musing eye.
From heaven the silver moon shone down
With gentle and mellow ray,
And beneath the crowded roofs of the town
In broad light and shadow lay.
A glory was on the silent sea,
And mainland and island too,
Till a haze came over the lowland lea,
And shrouded that beautiful blue.
Bright in the moon the autumn wood
Its crimson scarf unrolled,
And the trees like a splendid army stood
In a panoply of gold!
I saw them waving their banners high,
As their crests to the night wind bowed,
And a distant sound on the air went by,
Like the whispering of a crowd.
Then I watched from my window how fast
The lights all around me fled,
As the wearied man to his slumber passed
And the sick one to his bed.
All faded save one, that burned
With distant and steady light;
But that, too, went out -- and I turned
Where my own lamp within shone bright!
Thus, thought I, our joys must die,
Yes -- the brightest from earth we win:
Till each turns away, with a sign,
To the lamp that burns brightly within.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GAGX BHBH IJIJ KAKA BLXL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (88%) |
Metre | 11111011 0110111 0010100101 10100101 110010111 1100101 0010101101 011011 010110101 010101 101110011 01011001 10010101 11011 0011010101 0010011 111101101 11110111 0010110111 10100101 111111011 0110111 1010111101 0011111 1101111 1100101 11111011 11110111 11110111 10101111 11101101 101111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,099 |
Words | 221 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 109 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 112 Views
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"Musings" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18689/musings>.
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