Analysis of An Old Lesson From The Fields

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



Even as I watched the daylight how it sped
From noon till eve, and saw the light wind pass
In long pale waves across the flashing grass,
And heard through all my dreams, wherever led,
The thin cicada singing overhead,
I felt what joyance all this nature has,
And saw myself made clear as in a glass,
How that my soul was for the most part dead.

Oh, light, I cried, and, heaven, with all your blue,
Oh, earth, with all your sunny fruitfulness,
And ye, tall lillies, of the wind-vexed field,
What power and beauty life indeed might yield,
Could we but cast away its conscious stress,
Simple of heart, becoming even as you.


Scheme ABBAAXBA CBDDXC
Poetic Form
Metre 1011101111 1111010111 0111010101 0111110101 0101010101 111111101 011111001 1111110111 11110101111 11111101 011110111 11001010111 1111011101 10110101011
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 615
Words 117
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 241
Words per stanza (avg) 58
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

35 sec read
108

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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