Analysis of Spring Carol

Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)



WHEN loud by landside streamlets gush,
And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush,
With sun on the meadows
And songs in the shadows
Comes again to me
The gift of the tongues of the lea,
The gift of the tongues of meadows.

Straightway my olden heart returns
And dances with the dancing burns;
It sings with the sparrows;
To the rain and the (grimy) barrows
Sings my heart aloud -
To the silver-bellied cloud,
To the silver rainy arrows.

It bears the song of the skylark down,
And it hears the singing of the town;
And youth on the highways
And lovers in byways
Follows and sees:
And hearkens the song of the leas
And sings the songs of the highways.

So when the earth is alive with gods,
And the lusty ploughman breaks the sod,
And the grass sings in the meadows,
And the flowers smile in the shadows,
Sits my heart at ease,
Hearing the song of the leas,
Singing the songs of the meadows.


Scheme AABBCCB DDBBEEB FFGGHHG XXBBHHB
Poetic Form
Metre 111111 01001101 11101 01001 10111 01101101 0110111 1110101 01010101 111010 101001010 11101 1010101 10101010 11011011 011010101 01101 01001 1001 01001101 0101101 110110111 00101101 0011001 00101001 11111 1001101 1001101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 870
Words 170
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7, 7
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 175
Words per stanza (avg) 42
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 28, 2023

51 sec read
169

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. more…

All Robert Louis Stevenson poems | Robert Louis Stevenson Books

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