Analysis of Ballade Of Midsummer Days And Nights

William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)



With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,
All secret shadows and mystic lights,
Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

There's a music of bells from the trampling teams,
Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,
The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
A soul from the honeysuckle strays,
And the nightingale as from prophet heights
Sings to the Earth of her million Mays -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

And it's O, for my dear and the charm that stays -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
It's O, for my Love and the dark that plights -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!


Scheme abaBbcaC abaBbcbC abaBbcbC bBaC
Poetic Form
Metre 101011001011 0111001011 0011110101 11011101 011100101 1011010111 11110011 110111101 011110111 011100101 0111011 11011101 00110011 11010101 1101001001 110111101 10101110101 1110011 011111011 11011101 01101001 0010011101 110110101 110111101 01111100111 11011101 1111100111 110111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,153
Words 209
Sentences 17
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 4
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 229
Words per stanza (avg) 52
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

1:03 min read
48

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". more…

All William Ernest Henley poems | William Ernest Henley Books

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