Analysis of Sonnet LXXIX: The Monochord
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)
Is it this sky's vast vault or ocean's sound
That is Life's self and draws my life from me,
And by instinct ineffable decree
Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound?
Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crown'd,
That 'mid the tide of all emergency
Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea
Its difficult eddies labour in the ground?
Oh! what is this that knows the road I came,
The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame,
The lifted shifted steeps and all the way?—
That draws round me at last this wind-warm space,
And in regenerate rapture turns my face
Upon the devious coverts of dismay?
Scheme | ABBAABBACCDEED |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111101 1111011111 0110010001 111110101 1111111101 1101110100 1111010111 1100101001 1111110111 0111010111 0101010101 1111111111 0001010111 0101001101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 606 |
Words | 115 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 476 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 112 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 35 sec read
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"Sonnet LXXIX: The Monochord" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7620/sonnet--lxxix%3A-------the-monochord>.
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