Analysis of Coleridge's Cristabel
Charles Harpur 1813 (Windsor) – 1868 (Australia)
Mark yon runnel, how ’tis flowing,
Like a sylvan spirit dreaming
Of the spring-blooms near it blowing,
And the sunlight o’er it beaming—
Bright from bank to bank, or growing
Darkly inter-freaked, when streaming
Where some willowy shade hangs bending
O’er it in green mingled masses—
Lights and shades and blossoms glowing,
All for greater beauty blending
In its vision as it passes.
Where that shelving rock is spied,
There, with a smooth warbling slide,
It lapses down into a cool
And brimming, not o’erflowing, pool
Then between its narrowed banks,
Playing merry gurgling pranks,
It gushes, till a channel’d stone
Gives it a more strenuous tone.
Then its bright curves flashing are,
Like a mighty scimitar
Dropt by some Jove-vanquished god,
And sunk into the yielding sod;
Or betwixt thick-reeded beaches
It whispers low mysterious speeches;
Or, with an underswirling spread
Over a wide pebbled bed,
It bubbles with a gentle pleasure
Ere some new mood change the measure.
Such a runnel typeth well
The sweet wild verse of Christabel.
And if, all suddenly, at length,
It sank, a broken end to make
In some subterranean lake,
A further type we might behold
Of the story, half untold.
But what might picture to our view
The wonder-world it warbles through!
Scheme | AAAAAAABAABCCDDEEFF GGHHBBIIJJ XDXKKLL MM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110 10101010 10111110 0011110 11111110 10011110 111001110 11011010 10101010 11101010 01101110 1110111 11011001 11010101 010111 1011101 10101001 1101011 11011001 1111101 10101 1111101 01010101 1011110 1101010010 11111 100111 110101010 11111010 10111 011111 01110011 11010111 01001001 01011101 1010101 111101101 01011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,307 |
Words | 213 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 19, 10, 7, 2 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 250 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 131 Views
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"Coleridge's Cristabel" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5126/coleridge%27s-cristabel>.
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