Analysis of As In Their Flight The Birds Of Song

Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)



AS in their flight the birds of song
Halt here and there in sweet and sunny dales,
But halt not overlong;
The time one rural song to sing
They pause; then following bounteous gales
Steer forward on the wing:
Sun-servers they, from first to last,
Upon the sun they wait
To ride the sailing blast.

So he awhile in our contested state,
Awhile abode, not longer, for his Sun -
Mother we say, no tenderer name we know -
With whose diviner glow
His early days had shone,
Now to withdraw her radiance had begun.
Or lest a wrong I say, not she withdrew,
But the loud stream of men day after day
And great dust columns of the common way
Between them grew and grew:
And he and she for evermore might yearn,
But to the spring the rivulets not return
Nor to the bosom comes the child again.

And he (O may we fancy so!),
He, feeling time forever flow
And flowing bear him forth and far away
From that dear ingle where his life began
And all his treasure lay -
He, waxing into man,
And ever farther, ever closer wound
In this obstreperous world's ignoble round,
From that poor prospect turned his face away.


Scheme ABACBCDED EFGGXFHIIHJJX GGIKIKLLI
Poetic Form
Metre 10110111 1101010101 1111 01110111 11110011 110101 11011111 010111 110101 11010100101 0101110111 101111111 1111 110111 11010100101 1101111101 1011111101 0111010101 011101 010111011 110101101 1101010101 01111101 11010101 0101110101 1111011101 011101 110011 0101010101 01010010101 1111011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,071
Words 211
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 9, 13, 9
Lines Amount 31
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 284
Words per stanza (avg) 69
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 10, 2023

1:03 min read
132

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. more…

All Robert Louis Stevenson poems | Robert Louis Stevenson Books

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    Who wrote the poem ״Invictus״?
    A William Ernest Henley
    B Oscar Wilde
    C Thomas Hardy
    D Sylvia Plath