Analysis of Sitting On The Shore
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)
THE tide has ebbed away:
No more wild dashings 'gainst the adamant rocks,
Nor swayings amidst sea-weed false that mocks
The hues of gardens gay:
No laugh of little wavelets at their play:
No lucid pools reflecting heaven's clear brow--
Both storm and calm alike are ended now.
The rocks sit gray and lone:
The shifting sand is spread so smooth and dry,
That not a tide might ever have swept by
Stirring it with rude moan:
Only some weedy fragments idly thrown
To rot beneath the sky, tell what has been:
But Desolation's self has grown serene.
Afar the mountains rise,
And the broad estuary widens out,
All sunshine; wheeling round and round about
Seaward, a white bird flies.
A bird? Nay, seems it rather in these eyes
A spirit, o'er Eternity's dim sea
Calling--'Come thou where all we glad souls be.
O life, O silent shore,
Where we sit patient; O great sea beyond
To which we turn with solemn hope and fond,
But sorrowful no more:
A little while, and then we too shall soar
Like white-winged sea-birds into the Infinite Deep:
Till then, Thou, Father--wilt our spirits keep.
Scheme | ABBAACC DEEDDXX FGGFFHHIJJIIKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111001 1111101001 110111111 011101 111101111 11010101011 1101011101 011101 0101111101 1101110111 101111 1011010101 1101011111 1111101 010101 001100101 111010101 100111 0111110011 01010111 1011111111 111101 1111011101 1111110101 110011 0101011111 111110101001 11110110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,084 |
Words | 194 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 14 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 280 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 120 Views
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