Analysis of A Poet to...
Charles Harpur 1813 (Windsor) – 1868 (Australia)
Long ere I knew thee—years of loveless days,
A shape would gather from my dreams, and pour
The soul-sweet influence of its gentle gaze
Into my heart, to thrill it to the core:
Then would I wake, with lonely heart to pine
For the nocturnal image—it was thine.
Thine—for though long with a fond moody heed
I sought to find it in the beauteous creatures
I met in the world’s ways, twas but to bleed
With disappointment, for all forms, all features,
Yet left it void of living counterpart—
The shadowy mistress of my yearning heart.
Thine—when I saw thee first thou seem’dst to me
A being known, yet beautifully new!
As when, to crown some sage’s theory,
Amid heaven’s sisterhoods, into shining view
Comes the conjectured star!—his lucky name
To halo thenceforth with its virgin flame.
But I forget! Far from thy rural home,
Behold I wander mid primeval woods,
In which but savage things are wont to roam,
Mixing fond questionings with solitude’s
Wild voices, where amid her glades and dells
Enwrapt in twilight trance her shadowy presence dwells.
And now the Hunter, with a swollen speed,
Rushes in thunder at my side, but wears
A softened mien whene’er its reaches lead
My vision westward—where pale fancy rears
Thy wood—next by that brook whose murmurs first,
As with a flattering heed, my love’s new gladness nurst.
And with the river’s murmur, oft a tone
Of that far brook seems blending; accents, too,
Of the dear voice there heard—that voice alone
To me unequalled,—like a silvery dew
Honeyed with manna, dropping near me seems,
As oft I listen, lost in rich memorial dreams.
But vain these musings! Though my spirit’s bride,
Thou knewest not of my love! Though all my days
Must henceforth be inevitably dyed
Or bright, or dark, through thee,—this missive says
Thy lot is cast, and thou a wife wilt be
Ere I again may look (if e’er again) on thee!
The poet’s doom is on me! Poets make
Beauty immortal, and yet luckless miss
The charms they sing; martyrs at fortune’s stake,
As if their soul’s capacity for bliss
Might else mix earth with heaven, and so annul
That want which makes man seek the world-wide beautiful!
Yet, ye wild woods and waters of the earth,
How changed (with all things) shall ye grow to me!
And even the spirit of your summer mirth
Moan pine-like in the woods of memory;
Still, shorn of nearer joy, my heart alone
Out in the mother-whole may henceforth seek its own.
Scheme | ABABCCDEDEFF GHGHII JXJAAX DXXXXD KHKHLL MAMXGG NONOPP QGQGKK |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111101 0111011101 01110011101 0111111101 1111110111 1001010111 1111101101 1111100110 1100111111 1010111110 111111010 01001011101 1111111111 010111001 111111010 0110101101 10111101 110111101 1101111101 0111010101 0111011111 10110011 1101010101 10110100101 0101010101 1001011111 010111101 1101011101 1111111101 110100111111 0101010101 1111110101 1011111101 111101001 111010111 1111010101001 1111011101 1111111111 1111010001 1111111101 1111010111 110111110111 0101111101 1001001101 0111101101 1111010011 11111100110 111111011100 1111010101 1111111111 01001011101 1110011100 1111011101 100101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,500 |
Words | 428 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 234 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:08 min read
- 101 Views
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