Analysis of The Sundew
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
A LITTLE marsh-plant, yellow green,
And pricked at lip with tender red.
Tread close, and either way you tread
Some faint black water jets between
Lest you should bruise the curious head.
A live thing maybe; who shall know?
The summer knows and suffers it;
For the cool moss is thick and sweet
Each side, and saves the blossom so
That it lives out the long June heat.
The deep scent of the heather burns
About it; breathless though it be,
Bow down and worship; more than we
Is the least flower whose life returns,
Least weed renascent in the sea.
We are vexed and cumbered in earth’s sight
With wants, with many memories;
These see their mother what she is,
Glad-growing, till August leave more bright
The apple-coloured cranberries.
Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,
Blown all one way to shelter it
From trample of strayed kine, with feet
Felt heavier than the moorhen was,
Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.
You call it sundew: how it grows,
If with its colour it have breath,
If life taste sweet to it, if death
Pain its soft petal, no man knows:
Man has no sight or sense that saith.
My sundew, grown of gentle days,
In these green miles the spring begun
Thy growth ere April had half done
With the soft secret of her ways
Or June made ready for the sun.
O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,
I have a secret halved with thee.
The name that is love’s name to me
Thou knowest, and the face of her
Who is my festival to see.
The hard sun, as thy petals knew,
Coloured the heavy moss-water:
Thou wert not worth green midsummer
Nor fit to live to August blue,
O sundew, not remembering her.
Scheme | ABBAB CDECE FGGFG HIXHI XDEXE JKKJK LMMLM NGGNG ONNON |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 01011101 01111101 11010111 11110101 111101001 01110111 01010101 10111101 11010101 11110111 01110101 01110111 11010111 101101101 111001 11101011 11110100 11110111 110110111 0101010 1101011 11111101 11011111 11001011 11110111 1111111 1111111 11111111 11110111 11111111 1111101 01110101 11110111 10110101 11110101 11111110 11010111 01111111 1100110 11110011 01111101 10010110 11111110 11111101 11101000 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,567 |
Words | 299 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 139 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 156 Views
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"The Sundew" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1426/the-sundew>.
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