Analysis of A Coast View
Charles Harpur 1813 (Windsor) – 1868 (Australia)
High ’mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet
Riseth in Babylonian mass above,
In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair
Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone,
And gaze with a keen wondering happiness
Out o’er the sea. Unto the circling bend
That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain
It stretches, changeful as a lover’s dream—
Into great spaces mapped by light and shade
In constant interchange—either ‘neath clouds
The billows darken, or they shimmer bright
In sunny scopes of measureless expanse.
’Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour,
Calm, or but gently heaving;—yet, O God!
What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled
In slumber, under that wide-shining face!
While o’er the watery gleam—there where its edge
Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails
Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen,
Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still
Comes rising with them from the void beyond,
Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep
And carried upward by ethereal hands
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101101111 100100101 001110011 1111011101 01101100100 11011001001 11010011001 110110101 0111011101 010011011 0101011101 01011101 1101101010 1111010111 10111111 0101011101 11010011111 101100011 1111111101 1111010111 1101110101 11010011101 01010101001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,007 |
Words | 172 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 23 |
Lines Amount | 23 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 775 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 169 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 52 Views
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"A Coast View" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5106/a-coast-view>.
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