Analysis of The King Of Thule

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 (Frankfurt) – 1832 (Weimar)



IN Thule lived a monarch,

Still faithful to the grave,
To whom his dying mistress

A golden goblet gave.

Beyond all price he deem'd it,

He quaff'd it at each feast;
And, when he drain'd that goblet,

His tears to flow ne'er ceas'd.

And when he felt death near him,

His cities o'er he told,
And to his heir left all things,

But not that cup of gold.

A regal banquet held he

In his ancestral ball,
In yonder sea-wash'd castle,

'Mongst his great nobles all.

There stood the aged reveller,

And drank his last life's-glow,--
Then hurl'd the holy goblet

Into the flood below.

He saw it falling, filling,

And sinking 'neath the main,
His eyes then closed for ever,

He never drank again.


Scheme X AX A X BC B X DX D X EX E F GC G X XF X
Poetic Form
Metre 01101 110101 1111010 010101 0111111 111111 0111110 111111 0111111 1101011 0111111 111111 0101011 010101 0101110 111101 1101100 011111 1101010 010101 1111010 010101 1111110 110101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 662
Words 128
Sentences 7
Stanzas 18
Stanza Lengths 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 29
Words per stanza (avg) 7
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 21, 2023

41 sec read
140

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and politician. more…

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