Analysis of Ballade Of Autumn
Andrew Lang 1844 (Selkirk, Scottish Borders) – 1912 (Banchory)
We built a castle in the air,
In summer weather, you and I,
The wind and sun were in your hair, -
Gold hair against a sapphire sky:
When Autumn came, with leaves that fly
Before the storm, across the plain,
You fled from me, with scarce a sigh -
My Love returns no more again!
The windy lights of Autumn flare:
I watch the moonlit sails go by;
I marvel how men toil and fare,
The weary business that they ply!
Their voyaging is vanity,
And fairy gold is all their gain,
And all the winds of winter cry,
'My Love returns no more again!'
Here, in my castle of Despair,
I sit alone with memory;
The wind-fed wolf has left his lair,
To keep the outcast company.
The brooding owl he hoots hard by,
The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane,
The Rhymer's soothest prophecy,--
My Love returns no more again!
Lady, my home until I die
Is here, where youth and hope were slain:
They flit, the ghosts of our July,
My Love returns no more again!
Scheme | ababbcbD ababecbD aeaebceD bcbD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010001 01010101 01010011 110101001 11011111 01010101 11111101 11011101 01011101 1101111 11011101 01010111 111100 01011111 01011101 11011101 10110101 11011100 01111111 1101100 01011111 011101111 011100 11011101 10110111 11110101 11011101 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 921 |
Words | 185 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 178 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 67 Views
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