Analysis of Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



I.
The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,
And evening’s breath, wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

II.
There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;
The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze
The dust and straws are driven up and down,
And whirled about the pavement of the town.

III.
Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and forever
It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the...
You, being changed, will find it then as now.

IV.
The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled--but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,
And over it a space of watery blue,
Which the keen evening star is shining through.


Scheme ABCBCDD AEFEFGG AHIHIXX XJKJKLL
Poetic Form
Metre 1 0111010101 0111010011 0111111101 0101100101 10010010101 1111011101 1 1111101111 110101101 0111101 000110101 0101110101 0101010101 1 01010101010 0101010101 110010 111110101 110 1101111111 1 01001011111 110100111 1101010101 1001010001 01010111001 1011011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 976
Words 184
Sentences 10
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7, 7
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 193
Words per stanza (avg) 46
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

55 sec read
146

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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