Analysis of The Poplar Field

William Cowper 1731 (Berkhamsted) – 1800 (Dereham)



The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.

The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene where his melody charmed me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Short-lived as we are, our enjoyments, I see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.


Scheme AABB CCAA DDEE FFGG HHII
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 01111101 00100110101 01111001001 11111011001 11101111101 1111001111 0100101111 001111111101 01011101001 10101101101 001111001101 1111101011 11001111001 01111111011 101111001111 101011101011 10110111101 11101001011 111111001011 101101011011
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 928
Words 183
Sentences 6
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 147
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

54 sec read
101

William Cowper

William Macquarie Cowper was an Australian Anglican archdeacon and Dean of Sydney. more…

All William Cowper poems | William Cowper Books

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