Analysis of The Primrose of the Rock

William Wordsworth 1770 (Wordsworth House) – 1850 (Cumberland)



A Rock there is whose homely front
    The passing traveller slights;
Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
    Like stars, at various heights;
And one coy Primrose to that Rock
    The vernal breeze invites.
What hideous warfare hath been waged,
    What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
   And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature's chain
   From highest heaven let down!

The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
   Their fellowship renew;
The stems are faithful to the root,
   That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres
   In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
   Though threatening still to fall:
The earth is constant to her sphere;
   And God upholds them all:
So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
   Her annual funeral.      

Here closed the meditative strain;
   But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
   The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock
   I gave this after-lay.

I sang-Let myriads of bright flowers,
   Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied;-mightier far,
   Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope,
   Is God's redeeming love;

That love which changed-for wan disease,
   For sorrow that had bent
O'er hopeless dust, for withered age-
   Their moral element,
And turned the thistles of a curse
   To types beneficent.

Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
   The reasoning Sons of Men,
From one oblivious winter called
   Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose
   Our threescore years and ten.

To humbleness of heart descends
   This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the just,
   Before and when they die;
And makes each soul a separate heaven
   A court for Deity.


Scheme ABXBCBXDXDEX XFXFXF CGXGXX EHXHCH XIXIXX XXXAXA FJXJXJ XKXKXX
Poetic Form
Metre 01111101 0101001 11011111 1111001 0111111 010101 11001111 11001 1111111 011111 01010101 1101011 010110101 11001 01110101 11111 01010101 0100101 11110101 1100111 01110101 010111 11110111 0100100 1101001 111111 01010101 010111 0101101 111101 11111110 110101 0111001 1111 101010011 110101 11111101 110111 101011101 110100 01010101 11010 11011111 0100111 110100101 110101 00010101 101101 111101 1100111 0111001 010111 011101010 011100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,735
Words 289
Sentences 9
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 12, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 54
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 168
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

1:27 min read
127

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was the husband of Eva Bartok. more…

All William Wordsworth poems | William Wordsworth Books

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