Analysis of Sonnet : To A Balloon Laden With Knowledge

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



Bright ball of flame that through the gloom of even
Silently takest thine aethereal way,
And with surpassing glory dimm'st each ray
Twinkling amid the dark blue depths of Heaven,--
Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou
Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom,
Whilst that, unquenchable, is doomed to glow
A watch-light by the patriot's lonely tomb;
A ray of courage to the oppressed and poor;
A spark, though gleaming on the hovel’s hearth,
Which through the tyrant’s gilded domes shall roar;
A beacon in the darkness of the Earth;
A sun which, o'er the renovated scene,
Shall dart like Truth where Falsehood yet has been.


Scheme ABBCDEFEGHIJKA
Poetic Form
Metre 11111101110 1001111 0101010111 100010111110 0101011111 11010000101 1111111 01110100101 01110100101 0111010101 1101010111 0100010101 0111001001 111111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 630
Words 111
Sentences 2
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 500
Words per stanza (avg) 108
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 07, 2023

34 sec read
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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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