Analysis of Noon

Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)



Noon! and in the garden bower
The hot air quivers o’er the grass,
The little lake is smooth as glass
And still so heavily the hour
Drags, that scarce the proudest flower
Pressed upon its burning bed
Has strength to lift a languid head:
—Rose and fainting violet
By the water’s margin set
Swoon and sink as they were dead
Though their weary leaves be fed
With the foam-drops of the pool
Where it trembles dark and cool
Wrinkled by the fountain spraying
O’er it. And the honey-bee
Hums his drowsy melody
And wanders in his course a-straying
Through the sweet and tangled glade
With his golden mead o’erladen,
Where beneath the pleasant shade
Of the darkling boughs a maiden
—Milky limb and fiery tress,
All at sweetest random laid—
Slumbers, drunken with the excess
Of the noontide’s loveliness.


Scheme ABBAACCDECCFFGHHGIJIJKIKB
Poetic Form
Metre 10001010 0111101 01011111 011100010 11101010 1011101 11110101 1010100 1010101 1011101 1110111 1011101 111101 10101010 1100101 1110100 010011010 1010101 111011 1010101 1011010 10101001 1110101 110101 1011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 793
Words 141
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 25
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 635
Words per stanza (avg) 139
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
42

Clive Staples Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. He held academic positions at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. more…

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