Analysis of Sonnet LXXXIX: The Trees of the Garden

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)



Ye who have passed Death's haggard hills; and ye
Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know
And still stand silent:—is it all a show,—
A wisp that laughs upon the wall?—decree
Of some inexorable supremacy
Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise
From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes,
Sphinx-faced with unabashèd augury?
Nay, rather question the Earth's self. Invoke
The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day
Whose roots are hillocks where the children play;
Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yoke
Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wage
Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age.


Scheme ABBAACCDEFFEGG
Poetic Form
Metre 1111110101 1111111111 0111011101 0111010101 1110000100 1101111101 11110011111 111111 1101001101 0111011111 111110101 1101010111 11111100111 1101111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 645
Words 109
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 512
Words per stanza (avg) 104
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
117

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. more…

All Dante Gabriel Rossetti poems | Dante Gabriel Rossetti Books

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