Analysis of To An Old Quill Of Lord Dunsany's
Francis Ledwidge 1887 (Slane) – 1917 (Boezinge)
Before you leave my hands' abuses
To lie where many odd things meet you,
Neglected darkling of the Muses,
I, the last of singers, greet you.
Snug in some white wing they found you,
On the Common bleak and muddy,
Noisy goslings gobbling round you .
In the pools of sunset, ruddy.
Have you sighed in wings untravelled
For the heights where others view the
Bluer widths of heaven, and marvelled
At the utmost top of Beauty ?
No ! it cannot be ; the soul you
Sigh with craves nor begs of us.
From such heights a poet stole you
From a wing of Pegasus.
You have been where gods were sleeping
In the dawn of new creations,
Ere they woke to woman's weeping
At the broken thrones of nations.
You have seen this old world shattered
By old gods it disappointed,
Lying up in darkness, battered
By wild comets, unanointed.
But for Beauty unmolested
Have you still the sighing olden ?
I know mountains heather-crested,
Waters white, and waters golden.
There I'd keep you, in the lowly
Beauty-haunts of bird and poet,
Sailing in a wing, the holy
Silences of lakes below it.
But I leave you by where no man
Finds you, when I too be gone
From the puddles on this common
Over the dark Rubicon.
Scheme | XAXA ABAB BXBB ACAC DEDE FGFB GHXH BXBX XIHI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (89%) |
Metre | 011111010 111101111 01011010 10111011 10111111 10101010 10110011 0011110 111011 10111010 10111001 1011110 11101011 1111111 11101011 1011100 11111010 00111010 11111010 10101110 11111110 1111010 10101010 11101 1110010 11101010 11101010 10101010 11110010 10111010 10001010 10011011 11111111 1111111 10101110 1001100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,148 |
Words | 217 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 102 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 91 Views
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"To An Old Quill Of Lord Dunsany's" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13843/to-an-old-quill-of-lord-dunsany%27s>.
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