Analysis of Dead Man's Morrice
Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)
There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
A phantom strain:
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._
In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk,
At fall of day,
Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk
As poor ghosts may,
From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew,
Or tears, or rain,...
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._
Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades
That do return,
Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades,
Those nooks of fern,
Only to find that, of the may they knew,
No wraiths remain;
_Yet they still look, as I should look for you,
And look in vain._
They see those happier ghosts that waned away--
Whither, who knows?--
Ghosts that come back with music and the may,
And Spring's first rose,
Lover and lass, to sing the old burden through,
Stave and refrain:
_Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._
So, after death, if in that starless deep,
I lose your eyes,
I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep
Tryst in the skies.
I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true,
The old grass-grown lane.
_Look for me there, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._
There, as of old, under the dreaming moon,
A phantom throng
Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune,
A thin sweet song,
Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew,
Lips meet again....
_Look for me, once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain._
Scheme | ababcdCA efefcdCA ghghcdcA fificdCA jkjkcdcA lmlmcxCA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101011 1111 10011110101 1101 1111111111 0101 1111111111 0101 0111111101 1111 111011101 1111 1111110111 1111 1111111111 0101 1111110101 1101 1011111101 1111 1011110111 1101 1111111111 0101 11110011101 1011 1111110001 0111 10011101101 1001 1111111111 0101 110110111 1111 1101010111 1001 11010011111 01111 1111111111 0101 1111100101 0101 1101101011 0111 1111110101 1101 1111111111 0101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,552 |
Words | 308 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 202 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 80 Views
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