Analysis of The Reverie of Poor Susan

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



At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the Bird.

Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade:
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes!


Scheme AABB CCXB DDAX EEFF
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 10101111101 101111111111 11011101011 001011001101 101101011011 01001001011 11011111 00101110111 11011001101 11111011101 001011001101 01101011111 110011010111 01001001001 01111001111 00111101101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 818
Words 158
Sentences 6
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 39
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 157
Words per stanza (avg) 39
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
91

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was the husband of Eva Bartok. more…

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