Analysis of O sleep, my babe
Sara Coleridge 1802 (Keswick, Cumberland) – 1852 (London)
O sleep, my babe, hear not the rippling wave,
Nor feel the breeze that round thee ling'ring strays
To drink thy balmy breath,
And sigh one long farewell.
Soon shall it mourn above thy wat'ry bed,
And whisper to me, on the wave-beat shore,
Deep murm'ring in reproach,
Thy sad untimely fate.
Ere those dear eyes had open'd on the light,
In vain to plead, thy coming life was sold,
O waken'd but to sleep,
Whence it can wake no more!
A thousand and a thousand silken leaves
The tufted beech unfolds in early spring,
All clad in tenderest green,
All of the self-same shape:
A thousand infant faces, soft and sweet,
Each year sends forth, yet every mother views
Her last not least beloved
Like its dear self alone.
No musing mind hath ever yet foreshaped
The face to-morrow's sun shall first reveal,
No heart hath e'er conceived
What love that face will bring.
O sleep, my babe, nor heed how mourns the gale
To part with thy soft locks and fragrant breath,
As when it deeply sighs
O'er autumn's latest bloom.
Scheme | XXAX BCXX XXXC XDXX XXXX BXXD XAXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111101001 1101111111 111101 01111 111101111 0101110111 11001 110101 1111110101 0111110111 11111 111111 0100010101 0101010101 11011 110111 0101010101 11111100101 011101 111101 110111011 011111101 1111001 111111 1111111101 1111110101 111101 1010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,011 |
Words | 185 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 57 Views
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