Analysis of The Spider Queen
Edith Nesbit 1858 (Kennington, Surrey ) – 1924 (New Romney, Kent)
IN the deep heart of furthest fairyland
Where foot of man has never trodden yet
The enchanted portals of her palace stand,
And there her sleepless sentinels are set.
All round grow forests of white eglantine
And drooping, dreaming clematis; there blows
The purple nightshade; there pale bindweeds twine
And there the pale, frail flower of slumber grows.
Her palaces are decked with gleaming wings,
Hung o'er with webs through spacious bower and hall,
Filled through and through with precious priceless things;
She is their mistress and she hates them all.
No darkling webs, woven in dust and gloom,
Adorn her palace walls; there gleam astir
Live threads of light, spun for a fairy's loom,
And stolen by her slaves and brought to her.
She wears a robe woven of the July sun,
Mixed with green threads won from the East at dawn,
Bordered with silver moonrays, finely spun,
And gemmed with glowworms from some shadowy lawn.
She wears a crown of dewdrops bright like tears,
Her girdle is a web of rainbow dyes;
She knows no youth, nor age; the hours and years
Leave never a shadow on her lips and eyes.
In magic rings of green and glistening light
Her fairies dance, in star-spun raiment clad,
Her people do her bidding day and night,
Her dark-robed servants toil to make her glad.
Her minstrels play to her--her singers raise
Soft songs, more sweet than man has ever heard,
With endless rhythms of love her courtiers praise,
And all their heart is in their every word.
She is the mistress of all things that set
Snare of fine webs to win their hearts' desire,
Queen of all folk who weave the death-strong net
Between the poppy and the wild-rose briar.
Yet sits despair upon that brow of hers,
And sorrow in her eyes makes festival;
The soul of grief with her sad soul confers,
And she sits lonely in her crowded hall;
Because she has woven a web of her bright hair--
A tear-bright web, to catch one soul; and he
Beheld her, in her beauty, set the snare,
And seeing laughed, and laughing passed out free!
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ XKXK LMLM NO NO BHBH PXPF HXHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 001111010 1111110101 00101010101 0101010011 111101110 0101010011 01011111 01011101101 0100111101 110111101001 1101110101 1111001111 111100101 010101111 111111011 0101010110 1101101011 1111110111 101101101 0111111001 110111111 010101111 11111101001 1100110101 01011101001 010101111 0101010101 0111011101 0101100101 1111111101 110101101001 01111011001 1101011111 11111111010 1111110111 01010001110 1101011110 0100011100 0111101101 0111000101 011110011011 0111111101 100010101 0101010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,007 |
Words | 360 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 132 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:48 min read
- 72 Views
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"The Spider Queen" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9011/the-spider-queen>.
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