Analysis of The Lofty Sky
Edward Thomas 1878 (London Borough of Lambeth) – 1917 (Pas-de-Calais)
To-day I want the sky,
The tops of the high hills,
Above the last man's house,
His hedges, and his cows,
Where, if I will, I look
Down even on sheep and rook,
And of all things that move
See buzzards only above:-
Past all trees, past furze
And thorn, where nought deters
The desire of the eye
For sky, nothing but sky.
I sicken of the woods
And all the multitudes
Of hedge-trees. They are no more
Than weeds upon this floor
Of the river of air
Leagues deep, leagues wide, where
I am like a fish that lives
In weeds and mud and gives
What's above him no thought.
I might be a tench for aught
That I can do to-day
Down on the wealden clay.
Even the tench has days
When he floats up and plays
Among the lily leaves
And sees the sky, or grieves
Not if he nothing sees:
While I, I know that trees
Under that lofty sky
Are weeds, fields mud, and I
Would arise and go far
To where the lilies are.
Scheme | ABCDEEFGBHAAIJKKLLMMNNOOPPQQRRAASS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101 011011 010111 110011 111111 1101101 011111 1101001 11111 011101 0010101 111011 110101 01010 1111111 110111 101011 11111 1110111 010101 101111 1110111 111111 11011 100111 111101 010101 010111 111101 111111 101101 111101 101011 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 864 |
Words | 183 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 34 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 680 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 180 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 129 Views
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