Analysis of Ballades I - To Theocritus, in Winter
Andrew Lang 1844 (Selkirk, Scottish Borders) – 1912 (Banchory)
AH! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar
Of London, leave the bustling street,
For still, by the Sicilian shore,
The murmur of the Muse is sweet.
Still, still, the suns of summer greet
The mountain-grave of Helike,
And shepherds still their songs repeat
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
What though they worship Pan no more
That guarded once the shepherd’s seat,
They chatter of their rustic lore,
They watch the wind among the wheat:
Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat,
Where whispers pine to cypress tree;
They count the waves that idly beat,
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
Theocritus! thou canst restore
The pleasant years, and over-fleet;
With thee we live as men of yore,
We rest where running waters meet:
And then we turn unwilling feet
And seek the world—so must it be—
We may not linger in the heat
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
Master,—when rain, and snow, and sleet
And northern winds are wild, to thee
We come, we rest in thy retreat,
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
Scheme | ababbxbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101 110101001 111001001 01010111 11011101 010111 01011101 110101001 11110111 11010101 11011101 11010101 110111 11011101 11011101 110101001 11101 01010101 11111111 11110101 01110101 01011111 11110001 110101001 10110101 01011111 11110101 110101001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,042 |
Words | 180 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 196 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 37 Views
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"Ballades I - To Theocritus, in Winter" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2773/ballades-i---to-theocritus%2C-in-winter>.
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