Analysis of Thistledown
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)
She danced thro' life as light as thistledown,
The grace of Columbine, charm of Pierette,
These, and that blithesome quality of thistledown,
With memory of her linger by us yet.
A fairy, slipping thro' a world material,
Shaming dull men made gross thro' mundance schemes,
She came to us, a being half ethereal,
To lure us into lands of strange, sweet dreams.
One hour she gave us of Elysian rapture,
A mood, a vision lamentably rare;
And now in vain our dark minds would recapture
The wholesome sweetness of her dancing there
Dancing, and ever dancing, gaily, smilingly,
Lending her genius in a hundred parts.
Leading us on to Fairyland beguilingly,
Dancing and dancing straight into our hearts.
And she has gone. What need is there to tell us
She was not ours who guessed not half her worth?
Or that the high gods, watching, had grown jealous
That she should waste such sweetness on mere earth?
So she who for a little while was lent to us
To cleanse with poetry the hearts of men
A sprite, a fairy pitying Heaven sent to us
Like thistledown is wafted from our ken.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFXGCG HIHIHAHA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 011101101 101110011 11001010111 010101010100 101111111 111101010100 1110111111 1101111110 0101011 010110111010 0101010101 100101010100 1001000101 10111101 10010101101 01111111111 11110111101 11011101110 1111110111 111101011111 1111000111 0101010010111 111101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,056 |
Words | 194 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 281 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 118 Views
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"Thistledown" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6793/thistledown>.
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