Analysis of Mad Song

William Blake 1757 (Soho) – 1827 (London)



The wild winds weep
    And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
    And my griefs infold:
But lo! the morning peeps
    Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling birds of dawn
The earth do scorn.

Lo! to the vault
    Of paved heaven,
With sorrow fraught
    My notes are driven:
They strike the ear of night,
    Make weep the eyes of day;
They make mad the roaring winds,
    And with tempests play.

Like a fiend in a cloud,
    With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
    And with night will go;
I turn my back to the east,
From whence comforts have increas'd;
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain.


Scheme ABABCCXX XDXDXEXE FGFGHHII
Poetic Form
Metre 0111 001101 1101 0111 110101 100101 0010111 0111 1101 1110 1101 11110 110111 110111 1110101 0111 101001 1101 101111 01111 1111101 1110101 111111 1101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 605
Words 113
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 19
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 150
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

34 sec read
201

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter and printmaker. more…

All William Blake poems | William Blake Books

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