Analysis of Cadmus and Harmonia
Matthew Arnold 1822 (Laleham) – 1888 (Liverpool)
Far, far from here,
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the green Illyrian hills; and there
The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,
And by the sea, and in the brakes.
The grass is cool, the sea-side air
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
More virginal and sweet than ours.
And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes,
Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia,
Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore,
In breathless quiet, after all their ills;
Nor do they see their country, nor the place
Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills,
Nor the unhappy palace of their race,
Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more.
There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes!
They had stay'd long enough to see,
In Thebes, the billow of calamity
Over their own dear children roll'd,
Curse upon curse, pang upon pang,
For years, they sitting helpless in their home,
A grey old man and woman; yet of old
The Gods had to their marriage come,
And at the banquet all the Muses sang.
Therefore they did not end their days
In sight of blood, but were rapt, far away,
To where the west-wind plays,
And murmurs of the Adriatic come
To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and there
Placed safely in changed forms, the pair
Wholly forgot their first sad life, and home,
And all that Theban woe, and stray
For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.
Scheme | XABBCBDD CXEFGFGE CHHIJKILJ MAMLBBKAL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111 001010011 01010100101 010010111 01010001 01110111 100101010 110001110 011111011 1101000100 1001110111 0101010111 1111110101 1011010101 1001010111 11101101 111110001001 11110111 0101010100 10111101 10111011 1111010011 0111010111 01111101 0101010101 1111111 0111101101 110111 010100101 11110101 11001101 1001111101 0111101 1101011001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,435 |
Words | 246 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 260 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 61 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 10, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 62 Views
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