Analysis of A Summer Pilgrimage
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
To kneel before some saintly shrine,
To breathe the health of airs divine,
Or bathe where sacred rivers flow,
The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.
I too, a palmer, take, as they
With staff and scallop-shell, my way
To feel, from burdening cares and ills,
The strong uplifting of the hills.
The years are many since, at first,
For dreamed-of wonders all athirst,
I saw on Winnipesaukee fall
The shadow of the mountain wall.
Ah! where are they who sailed with me
The beautiful island-studded sea?
And am I he whose keen surprise
Flashed out from such unclouded eyes?
Still, when the sun of summer burns,
My longing for the hills returns;
And northward, leaving at my back
The warm vale of the Merrimac,
I go to meet the winds of morn,
Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born,
Breathe scent of pines, and satisfy
The hunger of a lowland eye.
Again I see the day decline
Along a ridged horizon line;
Touching the hill-tops, as a nun
Her beaded rosary, sinks the sun.
One lake lies golden, which shall soon
Be silver in the rising moon;
And one, the crimson of the skies
And mountain purple multiplies.
With the untroubled quiet blends
The distance-softened voice of friends;
The girl's light laugh no discord brings
To the low song the pine-tree sings;
And, not unwelcome, comes the hail
Of boyhood from his nearing sail.
The human presence breaks no spell,
And sunset still is miracle!
Calm as the hour, methinks I feel
A sense of worship o'er me steal;
Not that of satyr-charming Pan,
No cult of Nature shaming man,
Not Beauty's self, but that which lives
And shines through all the veils it weaves,--
Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood,
Their witness to the Eternal Good!
And if, by fond illusion, here
The earth to heaven seems drawing near,
And yon outlying range invites
To other and serener heights,
Scarce hid behind its topmost swell,
The shining Mounts Delectable
A dream may hint of truth no less
Than the sharp light of wakefulness.
As through her vale of incense smoke.
Of old the spell-rapt priestess spoke,
More than her heathen oracle,
May not this trance of sunset tell
That Nature's forms of loveliness
Their heavenly archetypes confess,
Fashioned like Israel's ark alone
From patterns in the Mount made known?
A holier beauty overbroods
These fair and faint similitudes;
Yet not unblest is he who sees
Shadows of God's realities,
And knows beyond this masquerade
Of shape and color, light and shade,
And dawn and set, and wax and wane,
Eternal verities remain.
O gems of sapphire, granite set!
O hills that charmed horizons fret
I know how fair your morns can break,
In rosy light on isle and lake;
How over wooded slopes can run
The noonday play of cloud and sun,
And evening droop her oriflamme
Of gold and red in still Asquam.
The summer moons may round again,
And careless feet these hills profane;
These sunsets waste on vacant eyes
The lavish splendor of the skies;
Fashion and folly, misplaced here,
Sigh for their natural atmosphere,
And travelled pride the outlook scorn
Of lesser heights than Matterhorn.
But let me dream that hill and sky
Of unseen beauty prophesy;
And in these tinted lakes behold
The trailing of the raiment fold
Of that which, still eluding gaze,
Allures to upward-tending ways,
Whose footprints make, wherever found,
Our common earth a holy ground.
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011101 11011101 11110101 0101101 11010111 11010111 111100101 0110101 01110111 1111011 11111 0110101 11111111 010010101 01111101 111111 11011101 11010101 01010111 01110100 11110111 11011101 1111010 0101011 01110101 01010101 10011101 010100101 11110111 11000101 01010101 0101010 10010101 01010111 01111101 10110111 01010101 1111101 01010111 0111100 11010111 011101011 1111101 11110101 1111111 01110111 11010101 110100101 01110101 011101101 0110101 110011 1101111 01010100 01111111 101111 11011011 11011101 11010100 1111111 110111 11001001 10110101 11000111 0100101 11011 1111111 11110 0101101 11010101 01010101 01010001 111100101 11110101 11111111 01011101 11010111 0111101 010101 1101011 01011101 01011101 1111101 01010101 10010011 11110010 0101011 110111 11111101 101101 00110101 0101011 11110101 1110101 1110101 101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 3,210 |
Words | 577 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 96 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 218 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:55 min read
- 129 Views
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