Analysis of Ballade Of The Midnight Forest
Andrew Lang 1844 (Selkirk, Scottish Borders) – 1912 (Banchory)
Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old,
Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;
The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold,
And wolves still dread Diana roaming free
In secret woodland with her company.
'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite
When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,
And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,
Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee,
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy;
Then 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,
The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white,
With one long sigh for summers pass'd away;
The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
She gleans her silvan trophies; down the wold
She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee
Mixed with the music of the hunting roll'd,
But her delight is all in archery,
And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she
More than her hounds that follow on the flight;
The goddess draws a golden bow of might
And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay.
She tosses loose her locks upon the night,
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite,
The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight:
Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray
There is the mystic home of our delight,
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
Scheme | ababbccdcD ababbacdcD ababbccdcD ccdcD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1101010111 0101110101 0111011101 0111010101 010110100 1101010101 1101110101 01011011 1101111101 0101110101 1101101111 0111010101 1101000101 1011010111 011101100 111101001 0101010101 1111110101 0111010111 0101110101 110110101 1101010111 1101010101 1001110100 011101011 1101110101 0101010111 0111010111 1101010101 0101110101 1111010101 0101110101 0101010101 11010111001 0101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,549 |
Words | 286 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 10, 10, 5 |
Lines Amount | 35 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 310 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 71 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:26 min read
- 62 Views
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"Ballade Of The Midnight Forest" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2764/ballade-of-the-midnight-forest>.
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