Analysis of Under A Stagnant Sky
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
Under a stagnant sky,
Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,
The River, jaded and forlorn,
Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on;
Yet in and out among the ribs
Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles
Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,
Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,
Lingers to babble to a broken tune
(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)
So melancholy a soliloquy
It sounds as it might tell
The secret of the unending grief-in-grain,
The terror of Time and Change and Death,
That wastes this floating, transitory world.
What of the incantation
That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore
To take and wear the night
Like a material majesty?
That touched the shafts of wavering fire
About this miserable welter and wash -
(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!) -
Into long, shining signals from the panes
Of an enchanted pleasure-house,
Where life and life might live life lost in life
For ever and evermore?
O Death! O Change! O Time!
Without you, O, the insuperable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!
Scheme | XXXXXXXXXXAXXXX XBXAXXXXXXB XXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 100101 11111011 01010001 10101001001 10010101 10110011001 1111110111 11110101100 1011010101 110110111 110000100 111111 01010010101 010110101 111101001 1100110 1101011101 110101 100100100 1101110010 01110001001 101101101011 0111010101 11010101 1101111101 110010 111111 0111011 111111 1100010010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,075 |
Words | 188 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 11, 4 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 287 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 61 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 127 Views
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