Analysis of Falling Asleep
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
Voices moving about in the quiet house:
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors:
Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert.
Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom
Crowded with whispering trees; across the park
A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells:
And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon;
The low, red, rising moon. Now herons call
And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls
Sail from the wood above pale stooks of oats.
Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these;
And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams.
Music ... there was a bright white room below,
And someone singing a song about a soldier,
One hour, two hours ago: and soon the song
Will be ‘last night’: but now the beauty swings
Across my brain, ghost of remembered chords
Which still can make such radiance in my dream
That I can watch the marching of my soldiers,
And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces.
Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds....
September in the darkness; and the world
I’ve known; all fading past me into peace.
Scheme | XXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10100100101 11100101011 10101001101 1001110101 10110010101 0101111101 0111011100101 0111011101 010111011 1101011111 1011111111 0111111111 1011011101 01100101010 110110010101 1111110101 0111110101 11111100011 11110101110 0111010110 1001010001 0100010001 1111011011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,066 |
Words | 188 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 7, 10, 3 |
Lines Amount | 23 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 205 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 112 Views
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