Analysis of Sonnet: To The River Otter

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)



Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have past,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes
Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of Childhood! oft have ye beguil'd
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless Child!


Scheme ABBAACDCDCDECE
Poetic Form
Metre 110111101 11010010111 11001101011 1101110111 1001111111 101111111 1101010101 1111111101 110111111 01011111001 11111111 101111101 111110101 1111100101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 642
Words 113
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 513
Words per stanza (avg) 111
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

35 sec read
244

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. more…

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