Analysis of Prefatory Sonnets I
Henry Kendall 1839 (Australia) – 1882 (Sydney)
I purposed once to take my pen and write,
Not songs, like some, tormented and awry
With passion, but a cunning harmony
Of words and music caught from glen and height,
And lucid colours born of woodland light
And shining places where the sea-streams lie.
But this was when the heat of youth glowed white,
And since I've put the faded purpose by.
I have no faultless fruits to offer you
Who read this book; but certain syllables
Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells
And secret hollows dear to noontide dew;
And these at least, though far between and few,
May catch the sense like subtle forest spells.
So take these kindly, even though there be
Some notes that unto other lyres belong,
Stray echoes from the elder sons of song;
And think how from its neighbouring native sea
The pensive shell doth borrow melody.
I would not do the lordly masters wrong
By filching fair words from the shining throng
Whose music haunts me as the wind a tree!
Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian glooms
Shot through with sunset treads the cedar dells,
And hears the breezy ring of elfin bells
Far down by where the white-haired cataract booms,
He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells,
Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes.
Scheme | ABCAABABDEEDDF CGGCCGGCEEFHFH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111101 111110001 1101010100 1101011101 01011111 0101010111 1111011111 0111010101 111111101 1111110100 0111111 010101111 0111110101 1101110101 1111010111 1111010101 1101010111 011111101 010111100 111101101 111110101 1101110101 11010011001 111110101 0101011101 11110111001 1111011101 1101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,273 |
Words | 218 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 14 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 490 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 108 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
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"Prefatory Sonnets I" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17553/prefatory-sonnets-i>.
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