Analysis of A Song

Archibald Lampman 1861 (Upper Canada) – 1899 (Ottawa, Canada)



Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?

Come, night, anear;
I'll whisper in thine ear
What makes me so unhappy, full of care;
Dear night, I die
For love that all men buy
With tears, and know not it is dark despair.

Dear night, I pray,
How is it that men say
That love is sweet? It is not sweet to me.
For one boy's sake
A poor girl's heart must break;
So sweet, so true, and yet it could not be!

Oh, I loved well,
Such love as none can tell:
It was so true, it could not make him know:
For he was blind,
All light and all unkind:
Oh, had he known, would he have hurt me so?

Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?


Scheme AABAAB cccddc cxbeeb ffghhg AABAAB
Poetic Form Tetractys  (33%)
Etheree  (20%)
Metre 1101 111101 1111011111 11011 111111 11110111101 111 110011 1111010111 1111 111111 1101111101 1111 111111 1111111111 1111 011111 1111011111 1111 111111 1111111111 1111 110101 1111111111 1101 111101 1111011111 11011 111111 11110111101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 842
Words 192
Sentences 10
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 30
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 126
Words per stanza (avg) 38
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

58 sec read
64

Archibald Lampman

Archibald Lampman FRSC was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in English." Lampman is classed as one of Canada's Confederation Poets, a group which also includes Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. more…

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