Analysis of An English Wood

Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)



This valley wood is pledged
To the set shape of things,
And reasonably hedged:
Here are no harpies fledged,
No rocs may clap their wings,
Nor gryphons wave their stings.
Here, poised in quietude,
Calm elementals brood
On the set shape of things:
They fend away alarms
From this green wood.
Here nothing is that harms -
No bulls with lungs of brass,
No toothed or spiny grass,
No tree whose clutching arms
Drink blood when travellers pass,
No mount of glass;
No bardic tongues unfold
Satires or charms.
Only, the lawns are soft,
The tree-stems, grave and old;
Slow branches sway aloft,
The evening air comes cold,
The sunset scatters gold.
Small grasses toss and bend,
Small pathways idly tend
Towards no fearful end.


Scheme ABAABBACBDEDFFDFFGDHGIGGJJJ
Poetic Form
Metre 110111 101111 010001 11111 111111 110111 1101 111 101111 110101 1111 110111 111111 111101 111101 1111001 1111 11101 1011 100111 011101 110101 010111 0111 110101 11101 011101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 699
Words 127
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 27
Lines Amount 27
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 567
Words per stanza (avg) 125
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
87

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, scholar/translator/writer of antiquity specializing in Classical Greece and Rome, novelist and soldier in World War One. more…

All Robert Graves poems | Robert Graves Books

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