Analysis of Song For 'Tasso'

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



I.
I loved—alas! our life is love;
But when we cease to breathe and move
I do suppose love ceases too.
I thought, but not as now I do,
Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore,
Of all that men had thought before.
And all that Nature shows, and more.

II.
And still I love and still I think,
But strangely, for my heart can drink
The dregs of such despair, and live,
And love;...
And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
I mix the present with the past,
And each seems uglier than the last.

III.
Sometimes I see before me flee 15
A silver spirit’s form, like thee,
O Leonora, and I sit
...still watching it,
Till by the grated casement’s ledge
It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge
Breathes o’er the breezy streamlet’s edge.


Scheme ABXCCDDD AEEXBFFF AGGHHIII
Poetic Form
Metre 1 110110111 11111101 11011101 11111111 1101111 11111101 01110101 1 01110111 11011111 01110101 01 01111111 11010101 011100101 1 01110111 01010111 1010011 1101 1101011 11110111 1101011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 714
Words 141
Sentences 12
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 180
Words per stanza (avg) 46
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
83

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…

All Percy Bysshe Shelley poems | Percy Bysshe Shelley Books

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