Analysis of The Naturalist's Summer-Evening Walk
Gilbert White 1720 (Selborne) – 1793 (Selborne)
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire.
... equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
Ingenium.
Virg., Georg.
When day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the may-fly haunts the pool or stream;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;
Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale;
To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain
Belated, to support her infant train;
To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
Dash round the steeple, unsubdu'd of wing:
Amusive birds! -- say where your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat;
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?
Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride,
The God of Nature is your secret guide!
While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day
To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray,
'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night;
To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
To catch the distant falling of the flood;
While o'er the cliff th'awakened churn-owl hung
Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;"
While high in air, and pois'd upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft, enamour'd woodlark sings:
These, Nature's works, the curious mind employ,
Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:
As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!
Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine;
The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.
The chilling night-dews fall: away, retire;
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!
Thus, ere night's veil had half obscur'd the sky,
Th'impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:
True to the signal, by love's meteor led,
Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed.
I am , & c.
Scheme | A BCX CCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMNNXXXXBBOOGGXGBBAXNNJJ X |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101 1101111 1 110 1101010101 1101110111 1011110101 11010011111 110111101 0101010101 11011111 1011110101 1101010111 0101010101 1101010101 11010111 11111101 101100011 1101111101 111101011 1101011101 0111011101 1111010111 1101110111 1101010101 010101101 1101011101 1101101101 1101011101 1101010101 1100111010111 1011111001 1101010111 0101111 11010100101 010101001 1101010111 11001010101 1101111110 01001110111 0111110101 1101010101 0101110101 110111010010 1111110101 110101010111 11010111001 0101011101 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,097 |
Words | 358 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 3, 44, 1 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 408 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 89 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:52 min read
- 121 Views
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"The Naturalist's Summer-Evening Walk" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/16043/the-naturalist%27s-summer-evening-walk>.
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