Analysis of Recollections
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
Years upon years, as a course of clouds that thicken
Thronging the ways of the wind that shifts and veers,
Pass, and the flames of remembered fires requicken
Years upon years.
Surely the thought in a man's heart hopes or fears
Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken
Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears.
Ah, but the strength of regrets that strain and sicken,
Yearning for love that the veil of death endears,
Slackens not wing for the wings of years that quicken -
Years upon years.
Years upon years, and the flame of love's high altar
Trembles and sinks, and the sense of listening ears
Heeds not the sound that it heard of love's blithe psalter
Years upon years.
Only the sense of a heart that hearkens hears,
Louder than dreams that assail and doubts that palter,
Sorrow that slept and that wakes ere sundawn peers.
Wakes, that the heart may behold, and yet not falter,
Faces of children as stars unknown of, spheres
Seen but of love, that endures though all things alter,
Years upon years.
Years upon years, as a watch by night that passes,
Pass, and the light of their eyes is fire that sears
Slowly the hopes of the fruit that life amasses
Years upon years.
Pale as the glimmer of stars on moorland meres
Lighten the shadows reverberate from the glasses
Held in their hands as they pass among their peers.
Lights that are shadows, as ghosts on graveyard grasses,
Moving on paths that the moon of memory cheers,
Shew but as mists over cloudy mountain passes
Years upon years.
Scheme | abaB bax abaB cbcB xcb cbcB dbxB bdb dbdB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110111110 1011011101 10011010101 1011 10010011111 111111110 10010011111 110110111010 1011101111 101110111110 1011 101100111110 10100111001 110111111110 1011 10011011101 10111010111 1011011111 110110101110 10110110111 111110111110 1011 101110111110 100111111011 100110111010 1011 1101011111 100101001010 10111110111 1111111110 101110111001 111110101010 1011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,509 |
Words | 274 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 134 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:23 min read
- 155 Views
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"Recollections" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1387/recollections>.
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