Analysis of The Black Birds
Henry Van Dyke 1852 (Germantown, Pennsylvania) – 1933 (Princeton, New Jersey)
Once, only once, I saw it clear, --
That Eden every human heart has dreamed
A hundred times, but always far away!
Ah, well do I remember how it seemed,
Through the still atmosphere
Of that enchanted day,
To lie wide open to my weary feet:
A little land of love and joy and rest,
With meadows of soft green,
Rosy with cyclamen, and sweet
With delicate breath of violets unseen, --
And, tranquil 'mid the bloom
As if it waited for a coming guest,
A little house of peace and joy and love
Was nested like a snow-white dove
From the rough mountain where I stood,
Homesick for happiness,
Only a narrow valley and a darkling wood
To cross, and then the long distress
Of solitude would be forever past, --
I should be home at last.
But not too soon! oh, let me linger here
And feed my eyes, hungry with sorrow,
On all this loveliness, so near,
And mine to-morrow!
Then, from the wood, across the silvery blue,
A dark bird flew,
Silent, with sable wings.
Close in his wake another came, --
Fragments of midnight floating through
The sunset flame, --
Another and another, weaving rings
Of blackness on the primrose sky, --
Another, and another, look, a score,
A hundred, yes, a thousand rising heavily
From that accursed, dumb, and ancient wood, --
They boiled into the lucid air
Like smoke from some deep caldron of despair!
And more, and more, and ever more,
The numberless, ill-omened brood,
Flapping their ragged plumes,
Possessed the landscape and the evening light
With menaces and glooms.
Oh, dark, dark, dark they hovered o'er the place
Where once I saw the little house so white
Amid the flowers, covering every trace
Of beauty from my troubled sight, --
And suddenly it was night!
At break of day I crossed the wooded vale;
And while the morning made
A trembling light among the tree-tops pale,
I saw the sable birds on every limb,
Clinging together closely in the shade,
And croaking placidly their surly hymn.
But, oh, the little land of peace and love
That those night-loving wings had poised above, --
Where was it gone?
Lost, lost forevermore!
Only a cottage, dull and gray,
In the cold light of dawn,
With iron bars across the door:
Only a garden where the withering heads
Of flowers, presaging decay,
Hung over barren beds:
Only a desolate field that lay
Untilled beneath the desolate day, --
Where Eden seemed to bloom I found but these!
So, wondering, I passed along my way,
With anger in my heart, too deep for words,
Against that grove of evil-sheltering trees,
And the black magic of the croaking birds.
Scheme | ABCBACDEFDFXEGG HIHXJJXKAK LLMNLNMXOXHPPOXXQIRQRQQ STSUTUGGVACVOWCWCCXCYXY |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011111 11010010111 010111101 1111010111 10110 110101 1111011101 0101110101 11111 101101 11001110001 010101 1111010101 0101110101 11010111 10110111 11100 10010100011 11010101 110110101 111111 1111111101 011110110 111111 01110 11010101001 0111 101101 10110101 1011101 011 0100010101 1101011 0100010101 010101010100 11110101 11010101 111111101 01010101 01111 101101 010100101 110001 11111101001 1111010111 010101001001 11011101 0100111 1111110101 010101 01001010111 11010111001 1001010001 0101001101 1101011101 1111011101 1111 111 10010101 001111 11010101 10010101001 11010001 110101 100100111 10101001 1101111111 1100110111 1100111111 01111101001 0011010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,479 |
Words | 457 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 10, 23, 23 |
Lines Amount | 71 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 487 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 113 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:17 min read
- 60 Views
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"The Black Birds" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18377/the-black-birds>.
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