Analysis of Trees Against The Sky
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Pines against the sky,
Pluming the purple hill;
Pines . . . and I wonder why,
Heart, you quicken and thrill?
Wistful heart of a boy,
Fill with a strange sweet joy,
Lifting to Heaven nigh -
Pines against the sky.
Palms against the sky,
Failing the hot, hard blue;
Stark on the beach I lie,
Dreaming horizons new;
Heart of my youth elate,
Scorning a humdrum fate,
Keyed to adventure high -
Palms against the sky.
Oaks against the sky,
Ramparts of leaves high-hurled,
Staunch to stand and defy
All the winds of the world;
Stalwart and proud and free,
Firing the man in me
To try and again to try -
Oaks against the sky.
Olives against the sky
Of evening, limpidly bright;
Tranquil and soft and shy,
Dreaming in amber light;
Breathing the peace of life,
Ease after toil and strife . . .
Hark to their silver sigh!
Olives against the sky.
Cypresses glooming the sky,
Stark at the end of the road;
Failing and faint am I,
Lief to be eased of my load;
There where the stones peer white
in the last of the silvery light,
Quiet and cold I'll lie -
Cypresses etching the sky.
Trees, trees against the sky -
O I have loved them well!
There are pleasures you cannot buy,
Treasurers you cannot sell,
And not the smallest of these
Is the gift and glory of trees. . . .
So I gaze and I know now why
It is good to live - and to die. . . .
Trees and the Infinite Sky.
Scheme | AbabccaA AdadeeaA AfafggaA AhahiiaA ajajhhaa akakllaaa |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101 10101 101101 111001 101101 110111 101101 10101 10101 100111 110111 100101 111101 1011 110101 10101 10101 11111 111001 101101 100101 100101 1100111 10101 100101 11011 100101 100101 100111 110101 111101 100101 1101 1101101 100111 1111111 110111 001101001 100111 11001 110101 111111 11101101 1001101 0101011 10101011 11101111 11111011 1001001 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,310 |
Words | 255 |
Sentences | 24 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 171 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:16 min read
- 135 Views
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