Analysis of The Death Of Richard Wagner
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart -
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -
Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.
From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
Scheme | abaB bab abaB cdcD dcd xdcD efeF fef efeF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10111111001 11111101101 10110111 1011 0101011101 1001011101 1101011101 1111010111 1001110101 11110111111 1011 0111111101 11011111 11110011111 0111 0101011111 110101101001 1101010101 1001111110 11111011001 11110110111 0111 101101101111011011 10101100100101110111 01101110011111011 101101 101011010101101110111 111010110110100101 0111010111100110111 111011110110101101 1010010111100101111 1101011011011011 101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,754 |
Words | 330 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 154 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 64 Views
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"The Death Of Richard Wagner" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1408/the-death-of-richard-wagner>.
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