Analysis of In November (2)
Archibald Lampman 1861 (Upper Canada) – 1899 (Ottawa, Canada)
With loitering step and quiet eye,
Beneath the low November sky,
I wandered in the woods, and found
A clearing, where the broken ground
Was scattered with black stumps and briers,
And the old wreck of forest fires.
It was a bleak and sandy spot,
And, all about, the vacant plot,
Was peopled and inhabited
By scores of mulleins long since dead.
A silent and forsaken brood
In that mute opening of the wood,
So shrivelled and so thin they were,
So gray, so haggard, and austere,
Not plants at all they seemed to me,
But rather some spare company
Of hermit folk, who long ago,
Wandering in bodies to and fro,
Had chanced upon this lonely way,
And rested thus, till death one day
Surprised them at their compline prayer,
And left them standing lifeless there.
There was no sound about the wood
Save the wind's secret stir. I stood
Among the mullein-stalks as still
As if myself had grown to be
One of their sombre company,
A body without wish or will
And as I stood, quite suddenly,
Down from a furrow in the sky
The sun shone out a little space
Across that silent sober place,
Over the sand heaps and brown sod,
The mulleins and dead goldenrod,
And passed beyond the thickets gray,
And lit the fallen leaves that lay,
Level and deep within the wood,
A rustling yellow multitude.
And all around me the thin light,
So sere, so melancholy bright,
Fell like the half-reflected gleam
Or shadow of some former dream;
A moment's golden reverie
Poured out on every plant and tree
A semblance of weird joy, or less,
A sort of spectral happiness;
And I, too, standing idly there,
With muffled hands in the chill air,
Felt the warm glow about my feet,
And shuddering betwixt cold and heat,
Drew my thoughts closer, like a cloak,
While something in my blood awoke,
A nameless and unnatural cheer,
A pleasure secret and austere.
Scheme | AABBCCDDXXEFXGHHIIJJKK FFLHHLHACCMMJJFE NNOOHHCCKKPPQQGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110010101 01010101 11000101 01010101 11011101 001111010 11010101 01010101 11000100 1111111 01000101 011100101 1101110 11110001 11111111 11011100 11011101 100010101 11011101 01011111 0111111 01110101 11110101 10110111 0101111 1111111 1111100 01001111 01111100 11010001 01110101 01110101 10011011 010110 01010101 01010111 10010101 0101010 01011011 1111001 11010101 1111101 01010100 111100101 01011111 0111100 01110101 11010011 10110111 010001101 11110101 11001101 010001001 01010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,912 |
Words | 331 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 22, 16, 16 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 476 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 110 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 68 Views
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"In November (2)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3642/in-november-%282%29>.
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