Analysis of Autumn: A Dirge

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)




The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
                         And the Year
On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
                         Is lying.
               Come, Months, come away,
               From November to May,
               In your saddest array;
               Follow the bier
               Of the dead cold Year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
                         For the Year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
                         To his dwelling.
               Come, Months, come away;
               Put on white, black and gray;
               Let your light sisters play--
               Ye, follow the bier
               Of the dead cold Year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.


Scheme aabxaCccdBb aabxaCccdBx
Poetic Form
Metre 011110011110 0111100110110 001 1011011001111 110 11101 101011 011001 1001 10111 01111101 011110011110 01011001011 101 011011001011 1110 11101 111101 111101 11001 10111 010111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 946
Words 134
Sentences 5
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 11, 11
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 274
Words per stanza (avg) 66
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 31, 2023

40 sec read
155

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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