Analysis of Sweet Innisfallen
Thomas Moore 1779 (Dublin) – 1852 (Bromham)
Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,
May calm and sunshine long be thine!
How fair thou art let others tell --
To feel how fair shall long be mine.
Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell
In memory's dream that sunny smile,
Which o'er thee on that evening fell,
When first I saw thy fairy isle.
'Twas light, indeed, too blest for one,
Who had to turn to paths of care --
Through crowded haunts again to run,
And leave thee bright and silent there;
No more unto thy shores to come,
But, on the world's rude ocean tost,
Dream of thee sometimes as a home
Of sunshine he had seen and lost.
Far better in thy weeping hour
To part from thee, as I do now,
When mist is o'er thy blooming bowers,
Like sorrow's veil on beauty's brow.
For, though unrivall'd still thy grace,
Thou dost not look, as then, too blest,
But, thus in shadow, seem'st a place
Where erring man might hope to rest --
Might hope to rest, and find in thee
A gloom like Eden's, on the day
He left its shade, when every tree,
Like thine, hung weeping o'er his way.
Weeping or smiling, lovely isle!
And all the lovelier for thy tears --
For though but rare thy sunny smile,
'Tis heaven's own glance when it appears.
Like feeling hearts whose joys are few,
But, when indeed they come, divine --
The brightest light the sun e'er threw
Is lifeless to one gleam of thine!
Scheme | ABAB ACAC DEDE XFXF XGXG HFHF IFIX CXCX JBJB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (89%) |
Metre | 11111 1101111 11111101 11111111 11111 0111101 110111101 11111101 11011111 11111111 11010111 01110101 11101111 11011101 11101101 1111101 110011010 11111111 1111011010 111111 111111 11111111 11011101 11011111 11110101 0111101 111111001 111101011 10110101 0101111 11111101 110111101 11011111 11011101 010101101 11011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,327 |
Words | 252 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 29, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 114 Views
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"Sweet Innisfallen" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36904/sweet-innisfallen>.
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