Analysis of Epilogue II
Madison Julius Cawein 1865 ( Louisville, Kentucky) – 1914 ( Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky)
When dusk falls cool as a rained-on rose,
And a tawny tower the twilight shows,
With the crescent moon, the silver moon, the curved new moon in a space that glows,
A turret window that grows a-light;
There is a path that my Fancy knows,
A glimmering, shimmering path of night,
That far as the Land of Faery goes.
And I follow the path, as Fancy leads,
Over the mountains, into the meads,
Where the firefly cities, the glowworm cities, the fairy cities are strung like beads,
Each city a twinkling star:
And I live a life of valorous deeds,
And march with the Fairy King to war,
And ride with his knights on milk-white steeds.
Or it's there in the whirl of their life I sit,
Or dance in their houses with starlight lit,
Their blossom houses, their flower houses, their elfin houses, of fern-leaves knit,
With fronded spires and domes:
And there it is that my lost dreams flit,
And the ghost of my childhood, smiling, roams
With the fairy children so dear to it.
And it's there I hear that they all come true,
The fairy-stories, whatever they do
Elf and goblin, dear elf and goblin, loved elf and goblin and all the crew
Of witch and wizard and gnome and fay,
And prince and princess, that wander through
The storybooks we have put away,
The fairytales that we loved and knew.
The face of Adventure lures you there,
And the eyes of Danger bid you dare,
While ever the bugles, the silver bugles, the far-off bugles of Elfland blare,
The fairy trumpets to battle blow;
And you feel their thrill in your heart and hair,
And you fain would follow and mount and go
And march with the Fairies anywhere.
And she she rides at your side again,
Your little sweetheart whose age is ten:
She is the princess, the fairy princess, the princess fair that you worshipped when
You were a prince in a fairytale;
And you do great deeds as you did them then,
With your magic spear, and enchanted mail,
Braving the dragon in his den.
And you ask again, 'Oh, where shall we ride,
Now that the monster is slain, my bride?'
'Back to the cities, the firefly cities, the glowworm cities where we can hide,
The beautiful cities of Faeryland.
And the light of my eyes shall be your guide,
The light of my eyes and my snow-white hand
And there forever we two will abide.'
Scheme | AAABABA CCCXCXC DDDEDED FFFGFGF HHHIHIH JJJKJKJ LLLBLXL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111110111 001010011 101010101011100111 010101101 110111101 0100100111 11101111 0110011101 100100101 1010100110010101111 11001001 01101111 011010111 011111111 11100111111 110110111 1101011010110101111 11101 011111111 001111101 1010101111 0111111111 010101011 101011010110100101 110100101 010101101 01011101 01011101 011010111 001110111 1100100101001110111 010101101 0111101101 0111100101 01101010 011111101 11011111 1101001010010111101 10010010 0111111111 1110100101 10010011 0110111111 110101111 110100101001101111 01001011 0011111111 0111101111 0101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,219 |
Words | 425 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 249 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 59 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:07 min read
- 104 Views
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"Epilogue II" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/43248/epilogue-ii>.
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