Analysis of Stanzas To The Po
George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)
River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me:
What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!
What do I say---a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.
Time may have somewhat tamed them,---not for ever
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:
But left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move:
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I---to loving one I should not love.
The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.
She will look on thee,---I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!
Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,---
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!
The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?---
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.
But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.
A stranger loves the Lady of the land;
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fanned
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.
My blood is all meridian; were it not
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,
In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot
A slave again of love,---at least of thee.
'Tis vain to struggle---let me perish young---
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.
Scheme | ABAB BXBX CDCD EXEX XXXX XFXF BXBE GXGX HIHI JKJK LMLM JBJB NXNX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (54%) |
Metre | 101110101 1101011111 111101011 0101010011 1111010111 0101111111 0101110111 111101111 1111010111 1111010101 1111000111 0111101101 11111111110 1101110111 110101010 1101011101 1111010101 10101010111 111010101 0111011111 0101011101 0101010101 0111111111 011011101 1111111111 1111011101 1101111111 01001000110 011111011 1111011111 1101010001 1101011011 0111110111 1101111111 1111110111 1111110111 111110111 1011111111 10010101001 110010101101 0101010101 1101010111 11010011101 1011110101 11110100011 1111111111 0111011101 0101111111 1111011101 1111011111 1111011111 0111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,290 |
Words | 436 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 52 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 132 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 2:12 min read
- 114 Views
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"Stanzas To The Po" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15210/stanzas-to-the-po>.
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