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 Views
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"Swallows Travel To And Fro" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/31685/swallows-travel-to-and-fro>.
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