Analysis of In Harbour
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us
As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by;
To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us
Goodnight and goodbye.
A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh;
But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us
As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn's eye?
We have drunken of Lethe at length, we have eaten of lotus;
What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die?
We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread that smote us
Goodnight and goodbye.
Outside of the port ye are moored in, lying
Close from the wind and at ease from the tide,
What sounds come swelling, what notes fall dying
Outside?
They will not cease, they will not abide:
Voices of presage in darkness crying
Pass and return and relapse aside.
Ye see not, but hear ye not wild wings flying
To the future that wakes from the past that died?
Is grief still sleeping, is joy not sighing
Outside?
Scheme | abaB bab abaB cdcD dcd cdcD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110111011 110110110111 1010111110111 101 0111100101111 1011101111011 111010011011 111011111110110 111111101101 111101101001111 101 11101111010 1101011101 1111011110 11 111111101 1011001010 100100101 11111111110 10101110111 1111011110 11 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 972 |
Words | 189 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 128 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 130 Views
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"In Harbour" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1334/in-harbour>.
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