Analysis of The Strangers
Walter de la Mare 1873 (Charlton, London) – 1956 (Twickenham)
Dim-berried is the mistletoe
With globes of sheenless grey,
The holly mid ten thousand thorns
Smoulders its fires away;
And in the manger Jesus sleeps
This Christmas Day.
Bull unto bull with hollow throat
Makes echo every hill,
Cold sheep in pastures thick with snow
The air with bleating fill;
While of his mother’s heart this Babe
Takes His sweet will.
All flowers and butterflies lie hid,
The blackbird and the thrush
Pipe but a little as they flit
Restless from bush to bush
Even to the robin Gabriel hath
Cried softly ‘Hush!’
Now night’s astir with burning stars
In darkness of the snow;
Burdened with frankincense and myrrh
And gold the Strangers go
Into a dusk where one dim lamp
Burns softly, lo!
No snowdrop yet its small head nods
In winds of winter drear;
No lark at casement in the sky
Sings matins shrill and clear;
Yet in this frozen mirk the Dawn
Breathes, Spring is here!
Scheme | ABXBXB XCACXC XDXXXD XAXAXA XBXXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (23%) Etheree (23%) |
Metre | 111010 11111 01011101 111001 00010101 1101 11011101 1101001 11010111 01111 11110111 1111 11001011 010001 11010111 101111 1010101001 1101 1111101 010101 1011001 010101 01011111 1101 1111111 011101 1111001 11101 10110101 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 874 |
Words | 162 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 142 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 48 sec read
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