Analysis of On Leaving A Place Of Residence
William Lisle Bowles 1762 (King's Sutton) – 1850
If I could bid thee, pleasant shade, farewell
Without a sigh, amidst whose circling bowers
My stripling prime was passed, and happiest hours,
Dead were I to the sympathies that swell
The human breast! These woods, that whispering wave,
My father reared and nursed, now to the grave
Gone down; he loved their peaceful shades, and said,
Perhaps, as here he mused: Live, laurels green;
Ye pines that shade the solitary scene,
Live blooming and rejoice! When I am dead
My son shall guard you, and amid your bowers,
Like me, find shelter from life's beating showers.
These thoughts, my father, every spot endear;
And whilst I think, with self-accusing pain,
A stranger shall possess the loved domain,
In each low wind I seem thy voice to hear.
But these are shadows of the shaping brain
That now my heart, alas! can ill sustain:
We must forget--the world is wide--the abode
Of peace may still be found, nor hard the road.
It boots not, so, to every chance resigned,
Where'er the spot, we bear the unaltered mind.
Yet, oh! poor cottage, and thou sylvan shade,
Remember, ere I left your coverts green,
Where in my youth I mused, in childhood played,
I gazed, I paused, I dropped a tear unseen,
That bitter from the font of memory fell,
Thinking on him who reared you; now, farewell!
Scheme | ABBACCDEEDBBFGGFGGHHIIJEJEAA |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111011 010101110010 110111010010 1011010011 01011111001 1101011101 1111110101 0111111101 111101001 1100011111 11111001110 11110111010 11110100101 0111110101 0101010101 0111111111 111110101 1111011101 11010111001 1111111101 11111100101 10011100101 1111001101 010111111 101111011 1111110101 11010111001 101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,258 |
Words | 228 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 989 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 226 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 30 Views
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"On Leaving A Place Of Residence" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40908/on-leaving-a-place-of-residence>.
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