Analysis of Song

Helen Maria Williams 1761 (London) – 1827



Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires--
The sun from India's shore retires--
To EVAN'S banks with temp'rate ray,
Home of my youth! he leads the day.
O banks to me for ever dear!
O stream, whose murmurs still I hear!
All, all my hopes of bliss reside
Where EVAN mingles with the CLYDE .

And she in simple beauty drest,
Whose image lives within my breast,
Who trembling heard my parting sigh,
And long pursued me with her eye!
Does she, with heart unchang'd as mine,
Oft in the vocal bowers recline?
Or where yon grot o'erhangs the tide,
Muse, while the EVAN meets the CLYDE ?

Ye lofty banks that EVAN bound,
Ye lavish woods that wave around,
And o'er the stream your shadows throw,
Which softly winds so far below--
What secret charm to mem'ry brings
All that on EVAN'S border springs?
Sweet banks!--ye bloom by MARY'S side!
Blest stream!--she views thee haste to CLYDE!

Can all the wealth of INDIA'S coast
Atone for years in absence lost?
Return, ye moments of delight,
With richer treasures bless my sight!
Swift from this desert let me part,
And fly to meet a kindred heart!
Nor more may aught my steps divide
From that dear stream which flows to CLYDE.


Scheme XXAAXXBB BXCCDDBB EEFFGGBB XXHHIIBB
Poetic Form
Metre 110111010 011100101 1111111 11111101 11111101 11110111 11111101 11010101 01010101 11010111 110011101 01011101 11110111 100101001 1111101 11010101 11011101 11011101 01001111 11011101 1101111 1111101 11111101 11111111 110111001 01110101 01110101 11010111 11110111 01110101 11111101 11111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,147
Words 217
Sentences 22
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 223
Words per stanza (avg) 53
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:08 min read
34

Helen Maria Williams

Helen Maria Williams was a British novelist poet and translator of French-language works A religious dissenter she was a supporter of abolitionism and of the ideals of the French Revolution she was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror but nonetheless spent much of the rest of her life in France A controversial figure in her own time the young Williams was favorably portrayed in a 1787 poem by William Wordsworth but she was portrayed by other writers as irresponsibly politically radical and even as sexually wanton more…

All Helen Maria Williams poems | Helen Maria Williams Books

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