Analysis of Sonnet XXI.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)



Pensive, at eve, on the hard world I mused,
And my poor heart was sad: so at the Moon
I gazed--and sighed, and sighed--for, ah! how soon
Eve saddens into night! Mine eyes perused,
With tearful vacancy, the dampy grass,
That wept and glitter'd in the paly ray,
And I did pause me on my lonely way,
And mused me on the wretched ones, who pass
O'er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas!
Most of myself I thought: when it befell,
That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood
Breath'd in mine ear--'All this is very well;
But much of one thing is for no thing good.'
Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell!


Scheme ABBACDDCCEFEFE
Poetic Form
Metre 1011101111 0111111101 1101011111 1100111101 110100011 110100011 0111111101 0111010111 10011110101 111111101 1011010101 1011111101 1111111111 111101001
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 592
Words 117
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 449
Words per stanza (avg) 114
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
118

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. more…

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