Analysis of The Maid of Neidpath
Sir Walter Scott 1771 (College Wynd, Edinburgh) – 1832 (Abbotsford, Roxburghshire)
O lovers’ eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers’ ears in hearing;
And love, in life’s extremity,
Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary’s bower
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower
To watch her Love’s returning.
All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decay’d by pining,
Till through her wasted hand, at night,
You saw the taper shining.
By fits a sultry hectic hue
Across her cheek was flying;
By fits so ashy pale she grew
Her maidens thought her dying.
Yet keenest powers to see and hear
Seem’d in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog prick’d his ear
She heard her lover’s riding;
Ere scarce a distant form was kenn’d
She knew and waved to greet him,
And o’er the battlement did bend
As on the wing to meet him.
He came—he pass’d—an heedless gaze
As o’er some stranger glancing:
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
Lost in his courser’s prancing—
The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
Returns each whisper spoken,
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
Which told her heart was broken.
Scheme | ABABCBCB DBDBEBEB FBFBDGXG HBHBIJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011111 0101010 01010100 11110110 01110110 0101110 11111110 1101010 11010111 011110 11010111 1101010 11010101 0101110 11110111 0101010 110101101 1001010 01011111 1101010 11010111 1101111 01010011 1101111 1111111 1111010 010101001 101110 01011101 0111010 11010101 1101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,086 |
Words | 188 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 203 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 29, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 181 Views
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"The Maid of Neidpath" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35588/the-maid-of-neidpath>.
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