Analysis of To The Muse Of The North
William Morris 1834 (Walthamstow) – 1896 (London)
O muse that swayest the sad Northern Song,
Thy right hand full of smiting & of wrong,
Thy left hand holding pity; & thy breast
Heaving with hope of that so certain rest:
Thou, with the grey eyes kind and unafraid,
The soft lips trembling not, though they have said
The doom of the World and those that dwell therein.
The lips that smile not though thy children win
The fated Love that draws the fated Death.
O, borne adown the fresh stream of thy breath,
Let some word reach my ears and touch my heart,
That, if it may be, I may have a part
In that great sorrow of thy children dead
That vexed the brow, and bowed adown the head,
Whitened the hair, made life a wondrous dream,
And death the murmur of a restful stream,
But left no stain upon those souls of thine
Whose greatness through the tangled world doth shine.
O Mother, and Love and Sister all in one,
Come thou; for sure I am enough alone
That thou thine arms about my heart shouldst throw,
And wrap me in the grief of long ago.
Scheme | AABBCDEEFFGGDDHHIIJKLL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101101 11111111 111101011 1011111101 110111001 01110011111 01101011101 0111111101 0101110101 111011111 1111110111 1111111101 0111011101 110101101 101110101 0101010101 1111011111 1101010111 11001010101 1111110101 1111011111 0110011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 973 |
Words | 193 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 22 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 769 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 191 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 104 Views
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