Analysis of Philomel in London
Edmund William Gosse 1849 (England) – 1928 (England)
Not within a granite pass,
Dim with flowers and soft with grass--
Nay, but doubly, trebly sweet
In a poplared London street,
While below my windows go
Noiseless barges, to and fro,
Through the night's calm deep,
Ah! what breaks the bonds of sleep?
No steps on the pavement fall,
Soundless swings the dark canal;
From a church-tower out of sight
Clangs the central hour of night.
Hark! the Dorian nightingale!
Pan's voice melted to a wail!
Such another bird
Attic Tereus never heard.
Hung above the gloom and stain--
London's squalid cope of pain--
Pure as starlight, bold as love,
Honouring our scant poplar-grove,
That most heavenly voice of earth
Thrills in passion, grief or mirth,
Laves our poison'd air
Life's best song-bath crystal-fair.
While the starry minstrel sings
Little matters what he brings,
Be it sorrow, be it pain,
Let him sing and sing again,
Till, with dawn, poor souls rejoice,
Wakening, once to hear his voice,
Ere afar he flies,
Bound for purer woods and skies.
Scheme | AABBCCDD XXEEFFGG HHXXIIJJ KKHXLLMM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1010101 11100111 111011 001101 1011101 110101 10111 1110111 1110101 110101 10110111 10101011 10100100 1110101 10101 101101 1010101 1010111 111111 1101101 11100111 1010111 110101 1111101 1010101 1010111 1110111 1110101 1111101 111111 10111 1110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 961 |
Words | 171 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 192 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 52 sec read
- 67 Views
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