Analysis of Sotto Voce
Walter de la Mare 1873 (Charlton, London) – 1956 (Twickenham)
To Edward Thomas
The haze of noon wanned silver-grey,
The soundless mansion of the sun;
The air made visible in his ray,
Like molten glass from furnace run,
Quivered o'er heat-baked turf and stone
And the flower of the gorse burned on —
Burned softly as gold of a child's fair hair
Along each spiky spray, and shed
Almond-like incense in the air
Whereon our senses fed.
At foot — a few sparse harebells: blue
And still as were the friend's dark eyes
That dwelt on mine, transfixèd through
With sudden ecstatic surmise.
'Hst!' he cried softly, smiling, and lo,
Stealing amidst that maze gold-green,
I heard a whispering music flow
From guileful throat of bird, unseen: —
So delicate, the straining ear
Scarce carried its faint syllabling
Into a heart caught-up to hear
That inmost pondering
Of bird-like self with self. We stood,
In happy trance-like solitude,
Hearkening a lullay grieved and sweet —
As when on isle uncharted beat
'Gainst coral at the palm-tree's root,
With brine-clear, snow-white foam afloat,
The wailing, not of water or wind —
A husht, far, wild, divine lament,
When Prospero his wizardry bent
Winged Ariel to bind....
Then silence, and o'er-flooding noon.
I raised my head; smiled too. And he —
Moved his great hand, the magic gone —
Gently amused to see
My ignorant wonderment. He sighed.
'It was a nightingale,' he said,
'That sotto voce cons the song
He'll sing when dark is spread;
And Night's vague hours are sweet and long,
And we are laid abed.'
Scheme | X ABABXXCDCD EFEF GHGHIJIJXXKKXXLMMLXNXNXDJDJD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010 01111101 0110101 011100011 11011101 11011101 001010111 1101110111 01110101 10101001 110101 1101111 01100111 11110111 11001001 111101001 10011111 110100101 1111101 11000101 110111 01011111 11100 11111111 0101110 101101 11110101 11010111 11111101 010111011 01110101 1111001 110011 110010101 11111101 11110101 100111 110010011 11010011 111101 111111 011101101 011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,455 |
Words | 262 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 10, 4, 28 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 285 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 80 Views
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"Sotto Voce" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38305/sotto-voce>.
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