Analysis of Swallows Travel To And Fro

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



SWALLOWS travel to and fro,
And the great winds come and go,
And the steady breezes blow,
Bearing perfume, bearing love.
Breezes hasten, swallows fly,
Towered clouds forever ply,
And at noonday, you and I
See the same sunshine above.

Dew and rain fall everywhere,
Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,
And the whole round earth is bare
To the moonshine and the sun;
And the live air, fanned with wings,
Bright with breeze and sunshine, brings
Into contact distant things,
And makes all the countries one.

Let us wander where we will,
Something kindred greets us still;
Something seen on vale or hill
Falls familiar on the heart;
So, at scent or sound or sight,
Severed souls by day and night
Tremble with the same delight -
Tremble, half the world apart.


Scheme AAABCCCB DDDEFFFE GGGHIIIH
Poetic Form
Metre 1010101 0011101 0010101 1001101 1010101 1010101 011101 101101 101110 10101011 0011111 101001 0011111 111011 011101 0110101 1110111 1010111 1011111 1010101 1111111 1011101 1010101 1010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 735
Words 134
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 197
Words per stanza (avg) 44
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 13, 2023

40 sec read
131

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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