Analysis of A Descriptive Ode
Charlotte Smith 1749 (London) – 1806 (Tilford, Surrey)
Supposed to have been written under the Ruins of
Rufus's Castle, among the remains of the ancient
Church on the Isle of Portland.
CHAOTIC pile of barren stone,
That Nature's hurrying hand has thrown,
Half finish'd, from the troubled waves;
On whose rude brow the rifted tower
Has frown'd, through many a stormy hour,
On this drear site of tempest-beaten graves.
Sure Desolation loves to shroud
His giant form within the cloud
That hovers round thy rugged head;
And as through broken vaults beneath,
The future storms low-muttering breathe,
Hears the complaining voices of the dead.
Here marks the fiend with eager eyes,
Far out at sea the fogs arise
That dimly shade the beacon'd strand,
And listens the portentous roar
Of sullen waves, as on the shore,
Monotonous, they burst and tell the storm at hand.
Northward the demon's eyes are cast
O'er yonder bare and sterile waste,
Where, born to hew and heave the block,
Man, lost in ignorance and toil,
Becomes associate to the soil,
And his heart hardens like his native rock.
On the bleak hills, with flint o'erspread,
No blossoms rear the purple head;
No shrub perfumes the zephyrs' breath,
But o'er the cold and cheerless down
Grim desolation seems to frown,
Blasting the ungrateful soil with partial death.
Here the scathed trees with leaves half-dress'd,
Shade no soft songster's secret nest,
Whose spring-notes soothe the pensive ear;
But high the croaking cormorant flies,
And mews and hawks with clamorous cries
Tire the lone echoes of these caverns drear.
Perchance among the ruins grey
Some widow'd mourner loves to stray,
Marking the melancholy main
Where once, afar she could discern
O'er the white waves his sail return
Who never, never now, returns again!
On these lone tombs, by storms up-torn,
The hopeless wretch may lingering mourn,
Till from the ocean, rising red,
The misty moon with lurid ray
Lights her, reluctant, on her way,
To steep in tears her solitary bed.
Hence the dire spirit oft surveys
The ship, that to the western bays
With favouring gales pursues its course;
Then calls the vapour dark that blinds
The pilot,--calls the felon winds
That heave the billows with resistless force.
Commixing with the blotted skies,
High and more high the wild waves rise,
Till, as impetuous torrents urge,
Driven on yon fatal bank accursed
The vessel's massy timbers burst,
And the crew sinks beneath the infuriate surge.
There find the weak an early grave,
While youthful strength the whelming wave
Repels; and labouring for the land,
With shorten'd breath and upturn'd eyes,
Sees the rough shore above him rise,
Nor dreams that rapine meets him on the strand.
And are there then in human form
Monsters more savage than the storm,
Who from the gasping sufferer tear
The dripping weed?--who dare to reap
The inhuman harvest of the deep,
From half-drown'd victims whom the tempests spare?
Ah, yes! by avarice once possess'd,
No pity moves the rustic breast;
Callous he proves--as those who haply wait
Till I (a pilgrim weary worn)
To my own native land return,
With legal toils to drag me to my fate!
Scheme | XAXBBCDDCEEFXXFGGHIIHXXJKKJ AFLMMLNNXGGDOOXPPXQQFOOFRRSXXSGGTAXTUUH GGHVVWXXWNNYQPY |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111110100101 110010011010 1101110 01011101 110100111 11010101 11110110 1111001010 1111110101 1010111 11010101 11011101 01110101 010111001 1001010101 11011101 11110101 1101011 01000101 11011101 010011010111 1001111 101010101 11110101 11010001 010100101 0111011101 1011111 11010101 11010101 11001011 1010111 10001011101 10111111 1111101 11110101 110101001 0101111 10011011101 01010101 11010111 1001001 11011101 100111101 1101010101 11111111 010111001 11010101 01011101 10010101 110101001 10110101 01110101 1110111 1101111 01010101 11010111 110101 10110111 11010101 10111011 0101101 00110100101 11011101 1101011 0101101 1101011 10110111 111111101 01110101 10110101 110101001 01011111 001010101 111101011 111100101 11010101 101111111 11010101 11110101 1101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,992 |
Words | 524 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 27, 39, 15 |
Lines Amount | 81 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 811 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 173 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 04, 2023
- 2:42 min read
- 64 Views
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"A Descriptive Ode" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5563/a-descriptive-ode>.
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