Analysis of Thoughts Of Christmas-Day In India
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
IT is Christmas, and the sunshine
Lies golden on the fields,
And flowers of white and purple
Yonder fragrant creeper yields.
Like the plumes of some bold warrior,
The cocoa-tree on high,
Lifts aloft its feathery branches,
Amid the deep blue sky.
From yonder shadowy peepul,
The pale fair lilac dove,
Like music from a temple,
Sings a song of grief and love.
The earth is bright with blossoms,
And a thousand jewelled wings,
Mid the green boughs of the tamarind
A sudden sunshine flings.
For the East, is earth's first-born,
And hath a glorious dower,
As Nature there had lavished
Her beauty and her power.
And yet I pine for England,
For my own—my distant home:
My heart is in that island,
Where'er my steps may roam.
It is merry there at Christmas—
We have no Christmas here;
'Tis a weary thing, a summer
That lasts throughout the year
I remember how the banners
Hung round our ancient hall,
Bound with wreaths of shining holly,
Brave winter's coronal.
And above each rusty helmet
Waved a new and cheering plume,
A branch of crimson berries,
And the latest rose in bloom.
And the white and pearly misletoe
Hung half concealed o'er head,
I remember one sweet maiden,
Whose cheek it dyed with red.
The morning waked with carols,
A young and joyous band
Of small and rosy songsters,
Came tripping hand in hand.
And sang beneath our windows
Just as the round red sun
Began to melt the hoar-frost,
And the clear cold day begun.
And at night the aged harper
Played his old tunes o'er and o'er;
From sixteen up to sixty,
All were dancing on that floor.
Those were the days of childhood,
The buoyant and the bright;
When hope was life's sweet sovereign,
And the heart and step were light.
I shall come again—a stranger
To all that once I knew,
For the hurried steps of manhood
From life's flowers have dash'd the dew.
I yet may ask their welcome,
And return from whence I came;
But a change is wrought within me,
They will not seem the same
For my spirits are grown weary,
And my days of youth are o'er,
And the mirth of that glad season
Is what I can feel no more.
Scheme | XABA CDXD BEBE XFGF XXGC GHGH XXCX XXIB GJXJ GGKG XGAG XKGK CCGL GGKG CXGG XMIM ICKL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (71%) |
Metre | 1110001 110101 01011010 101011 101111100 010111 101110010 010111 1101001 01111 1101010 1011101 0111110 001011 1011101 01011 1011111 0101001 1101110 0100010 0111110 1111101 1110110 101111 11101110 111101 10101010 110101 10101010 1110101 11111010 1101 00111010 1010101 0111010 0010101 0010101 1101101 10101110 111111 0101110 010101 110101 110101 01011010 110111 0111011 0011101 0110110 111110010 1011110 1010111 100111 010001 1111110 0010101 11101010 111111 1010111 11101101 1111110 0011111 10111011 111101 11101110 01111110 00111110 1111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,006 |
Words | 381 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 17 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 68 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 95 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:57 min read
- 47 Views
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"Thoughts Of Christmas-Day In India" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25737/thoughts-of-christmas-day-in-india>.
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