Analysis of After Many Years
Henry Kendall 1839 (Australia) – 1882 (Sydney)
The song that once I dreamed about,
The tender, touching thing,
As radiant as the rose without,
The love of wind and wing:
The perfect verses, to the tune
Of woodland music set,
As beautiful as afternoon,
Remain unwritten yet.
It is too late to write them now --
The ancient fire is cold;
No ardent lights illume the brow,
As in the days of old.
I cannot dream the dream again;
But, when the happy birds
Are singing in the sunny rain,
I think I hear its words.
I think I hear the echo still
Of long-forgotten tones,
When evening winds are on the hill
And sunset fires the cones;
But only in the hours supreme,
With songs of land and sea,
The lyrics of the leaf and stream,
This echo comes to me.
No longer doth the earth reveal
Her gracious green and gold;
I sit where youth was once, and feel
That I am growing old.
The lustre from the face of things
Is wearing all away;
Like one who halts with tired wings,
I rest and muse to-day.
There is a river in the range
I love to think about;
Perhaps the searching feet of change
Have never found it out.
Ah! oftentimes I used to look
Upon its banks, and long
To steal the beauty of that brook
And put it in a song.
I wonder if the slopes of moss,
In dreams so dear to me --
The falls of flower, and flower-like floss --
Are as they used to be!
I wonder if the waterfalls,
The singers far and fair,
That gleamed between the wet, green walls,
Are still the marvels there!
Ah! let me hope that in that place
Those old familiar things
To which I turn a wistful face
Have never taken wings.
Let me retain the fancy still
That, past the lordly range,
There always shines, in folds of hill,
One spot secure from change!
I trust that yet the tender screen
That shades a certain nook
Remains, with all its gold and green,
The glory of the brook.
It hides a secret to the birds
And waters only known:
The letters of two lovely words --
A poem on a stone.
Perhaps the lady of the past
Upon these lines may light,
The purest verses, and the last,
That I may ever write:
She need not fear a word of blame:
Her tale the flowers keep --
The wind that heard me breathe her name
Has been for years asleep.
But in the night, and when the rain
The troubled torrent fills,
I often think I see again
The river in the hills;
And when the day is very near,
And birds are on the wing,
My spirit fancies it can hear
The song I cannot sing.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGHIH JKJKLMLM NFNFOPOP QAQARSRS XMXMTUTU VOVOJQJQ WRWRHXHX YZYZ1 2 1 2 I3 G3 XBXB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (31%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 01111101 010101 110010101 011101 00110101 11101 1100101 010101 11111111 0101011 1101101 100111 11010101 110101 11000101 111111 11110101 110101 11011101 011001 110001001 111101 01010101 110111 11010101 010101 11111101 111101 01010111 110101 11111101 110111 11010001 111101 01010111 110111 1101111 011101 11010111 011001 11010111 011111 0111001011 111111 1101010 010101 11010111 110101 11111011 110101 11110101 110101 11010101 11011 1110111 110111 11110101 110101 01111101 010101 11010101 010101 01011101 010101 01010101 011111 01010001 111101 11110111 010101 01111101 111101 10010101 010101 11011101 010001 01011101 011101 11010111 011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,487 |
Words | 470 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 80 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 181 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 28, 2023
- 2:21 min read
- 70 Views
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"After Many Years" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17434/after-many-years>.
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