Analysis of A Sunset
William Watson 1858 (Burley in Wharfedale) – 1935 (Rottingdean)
Westward a league the city lay, with one
Cloud's imminent umbrage o'er it: when behold,
The incendiary sun
Dropped from the womb o' the vapour, rolled
'Mongst huddled towers and temples, 'twixt them set
Infinite ardour of candescent gold,
Encompassed minaret
And terrace and marmoreal spire
With conflagration: roofs enfurnaced, yet
Unmolten,-columns and cupolas flanked with fire,
Yet standing unconsumed
Of the fierce fervency,-and higher
Than all, their fringes goldenly illumed,
Dishevelled clouds, like massed empurpled smoke
From smouldering forges fumed:
Till suddenly the bright spell broke
With the sun sinking through some palace-floor
And vanishing wholly. Then the city woke,
Her mighty Fire-Dream o'er,
As who from out a sleep is raised
Of terrible loveliness, lasting hardly more
Than one most monumental moment; dazed
He looketh, having come
Forth of one world and witless gazed
Into another: ev'n so looked, for some
Brief while, the city-amazed, immobile, dumb.
Scheme | ABABCBCDCEBEBFGFHFEIHIJIJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001010111 110010101101 0010001 11011011 11010010111 1001111 01001 010011 1010111 110011110 1101 1011010 1111011 111111 11101 11000111 1011011101 01001010101 01010110 11110111 1100110101 111010101 11101 11110101 01010111111 11010010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 961 |
Words | 153 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 26 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 791 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 149 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
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"A Sunset" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41976/a-sunset>.
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