Analysis of My Dream
Christina Georgina Rossetti 1830 (London) – 1894 (London)
Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night
Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.
I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled
Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:
It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;
Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled
Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,
Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.
The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend
My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;
And therefore it were wisely left untold;
Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.
Each crocodile was girt with massive gold
And polished stones that with their wearers grew:
But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,
Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,
Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.
All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,
But special burnishment adorned his mail
And special terror weighed upon his frown;
His punier brethren quaked before his tail,
Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.
So he grew lord and master of his kin:
But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?
An execrable appetite arose,
He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.
He knew no law, he feared no binding law,
But ground them with inexorable jaw:
The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,
Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,
While still like hungry death he fed his maw;
Till every minor crocodile being dead
And buried too, himself gorged to the full,
He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.
Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:
In sleep he dwindled to the common size,
And all the empire faded from his coat.
Then from far off a winged vessel came,
Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:
I know not what it bore of freight or host,
But white it was as an avenging ghost.
It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;
Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote
It seemed to tame the waters without force
Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:
Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,
The prudent crocodile rose on his feet
And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.
What can it mean? you ask. I answer not
For meaning, but myself must echo, What?
And tell it as I saw it on the spot.
Scheme | AB XBAACCDCED ECFGFHHGHHIJJIKKILKXXKKLMNNOOPMPQRQR SXS |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010011111 111110101 1101010111 110010011 1101010011 11110010111 110011101 110101111 0111111111 1101110101 011010101 1111111101 110111101 0101111101 1111110101 111000101 110101111 1110011111 11010111 0101010111 111010111 1101010101 1111010111 1111011111 11001001 111110110 1111111101 111110001 0101010111 0101110011 1111011111 11001010101 0101011101 111101011 1101011111 0111010101 01010010111 111101101 1101010101 1111111111 1111110101 1101010011 0111011101 1111010011 1101011101 110101101 010101111 01010010111 1111111101 110111101 0111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,154 |
Words | 401 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 10, 36, 3 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 434 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 100 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 31, 2023
- 2:00 min read
- 106 Views
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"My Dream" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5874/my-dream>.
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