Analysis of Lines on Revisiting the Country

William Cullen Bryant 1794 (Cummington) – 1878 (New York City)



I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever restless feet of one, who, now,
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.

For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains,--to behold,
With deep affection, the pure ample sky,
And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,--
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melody of winds with charmed ear.

Here, I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And, where the season's milder fervours beat,
And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear
The song of bird, and sound of running stream,
Am come awhile to wander and to dream.

Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake,
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen.
The maize leaf and the maple bough but take,
From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green.
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.

The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all
The wide earth knows; when, in the sultry time,
He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,
He seems the breath of a celestial clime!
As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below.


Scheme XAXABB CDCDEE AFAFGG HIHIJJ KBKBLL MXMJNN
Poetic Form
Metre 1101110101 1101100101 11110101 100110101 110111101 11101010101 011010111 0101011111 1001010111 1101100111 1101010101 10101001 1111010101 1101010101 1101001101 01011111 1101110011 010011111 1111010101 1101010101 010101011 0111010101 0111011101 1101110011 1111011111 0111011101 0110010111 11110101001 0101111011 1011110001 010111000111 0111100101 11111111 1101100101 11110110111 1001010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,575
Words 288
Sentences 12
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 36
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 208
Words per stanza (avg) 47
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:27 min read
90

William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. more…

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