Analysis of My Garden
If I could put my woods in song
And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.
In my plot no tulips blow,--
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;
And rank the savage maples grow
From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red.
My garden is a forest ledge
Which older forests bound;
The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
Then plunge to depths profound.
Here once the Deluge ploughed,
Laid the terraces, one by one;
Ebbing later whence it flowed,
They bleach and dry in the sun.
The sowers made haste to depart,--
The wind and the birds which sowed it;
Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
Planted these, and tempests flowed it.
Waters that wash my garden-side
Play not in Nature's lawful web,
They heed not moon or solar tide,--
Five years elapse from flood to ebb.
Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,
And every god,--none did refuse;
And be sure at last came Love,
And after Love, the Muse.
Keen ears can catch a syllable,
As if one spake to another,
In the hemlocks tall, untamable,
And what the whispering grasses smother.
Æolian harps in the pine
Ring with the song of the Fates;
Infant Bacchus in the vine,--
Far distant yet his chorus waits.
Canst thou copy in verse one chime
Of the wood-bell's peal and cry,
Write in a book the morning's prime,
Or match with words that tender sky?
Wonderful verse of the gods,
Of one import, of varied tone;
They chant the bliss of their abodes
To man imprisoned in his own.
Ever the words of the gods resound;
But the porches of man's ear
Seldom in this low life's round
Are unsealed, that he may hear.
Wandering voices in the air
And murmurs in the wold
Speak what I cannot declare,
Yet cannot all withhold.
When the shadow fell on the lake,
The whirlwind in ripples wrote
Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,
And omens above thought.
But the meanings cleave to the lake,
Cannot be carried in book or urn;
Go thy ways now, come later back,
On waves and hedges still they burn.
These the fates of men forecast,
Of better men than live to-day;
If who can read them comes at last
He will spell in the sculpture,'Stay.'
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF XGXG HIHI JKJK LMLM XNCN OPOP QRQR XSMS FTFT UVUV WXWX WXXX YZYZ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (94%) |
Metre | 11111101 011101 11111101 010101 0111101 11010101 01010101 11111101 11010101 110101 011110111 111101 110101 10100111 1010111 1101001 01011101 01001111 11111111 1010111 10111101 11010101 11111101 11011111 1010111 010011101 0111111 010101 11110100 11111010 00111 0101001010 11001 1101101 1010001 11011101 11100111 1011101 10010101 11111101 1001101 11011101 1101111 11010011 10011011 1010111 1001111 1011111 10010001 010001 1111001 110101 1011101 010101 111101101 010011 10101101 101100111 11111101 11010111 101111 11011111 11111111 11100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,112 |
Words | 398 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 16 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 102 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 161 Views
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"My Garden" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29837/my-garden>.
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