Analysis of A Grave By The Sea
George Essex Evans 1863 (London) – 1909 (Toowoomba)
No white cloud sails the lonely sky,
Thro’ the gaunt trees no breezes sigh,
Thro’ the lush grass no fall of feet;
No song of bird in all the land,
But, floating faintly, dreamily,
The distant dirge of waves that beat
In discontent upon the sand.
Here, where all Nature seems aswoon,
Time, languid as a summer stream,
Drifts down the sweet soft afternoon;
And Death, discrowned of terror, brings
Surcease to souls that wake not soon,
And casts above Life’s fevered dream
Cool shadows of Immortal Wings.
Here, by the old graves overgrown,
A bare mound, without wreath or stone,
Marks where he sleeps ’mid grasses long,
Who sought not things that others seek,
Who fought in silence and alone,
Who in his weakness was so strong
And in his strength so weak.
The shining years shall glide and go,
The human tides shall ebb and flow,
And Love make sweet the days to be,
And Death make smooth the brow of pain,
But no such heart again shall glow,
And no such friend shall come to me
Thro’ all the cycles that remain.
Some pass and perish with their breath;
He liveth yet and quickeneth,
As scent of roses on the wind
Recalls the bygone summer’s day;
He leaves this side the seas of Death,
The fragrance of a noble mind:
He dies, but passes not away.
Scheme | AABCDBCEFEGEFG EEHIEHI XDJEDJE KKLMKLM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11110101 10111101 10111111 11110101 110101 01011111 00010101 1111011 11010101 1101101 0111101 1111111 01011101 1110101 1101101 01101111 11111101 11111101 11010001 10110111 001111 01011101 01011101 01110111 01110111 11110111 01111111 11010101 11010111 11101 11110101 101101 11110111 01010101 11110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,231 |
Words | 231 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 35 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 242 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 57 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 73 Views
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