Analysis of Moonlight
Victoria Sackville-West 1862 (Paris) – 1936 (Roedean, Sussex)
What time the meanest brick and stone
Take on a beauty not their own,
And past the flaw of builded wood
Shines the intention whole and good,
And all the little homes of man
Rise to a dimmer, nobler span;
When colour's absence gives escape
To the deeper spirit of the shape,
-- Then earth's great architecture swells
Among her mountains and her fells
Under the moon to amplitude
Massive and primitive and rude:
-- Then do the clouds like silver flags
Stream out above the tattered crags,
And black and silver all the coast
Marshalls its hunched and rocky host,
And headlands striding sombrely
Buttress the land against the sea,
-- The darkened land, the brightening wave --
And moonlight slants through Merlin's cave.
Scheme | AABBCCDD EEFF XEGGXXHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11010101 11010111 0101111 10010101 01010111 11010101 1110101 101010101 1111001 01010001 1001110 10010001 11011101 11010101 01010101 1110101 01101 10010101 010101001 011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 705 |
Words | 127 |
Sentences | 2 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 8 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 190 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 11, 2023
- 39 sec read
- 149 Views
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"Moonlight" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37852/moonlight>.
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