Analysis of April.
Nathaniel Parker Willis 1806 (Portland) – 1867
A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star, when only one,
Is shining in the sky. Wordsworth
I have found violets. April hath come on,
And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain
Falls in the beaded drops of summer time.
You may hear birds at morning, and at eve
The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,
Cooing upon the eaves, and drawing in
His beautiful bright neck, and from the hills,
A murmur like the hoarseness of the sea
Tells the release of waters, and the earth
Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves
Are lifted by the grass - and so I know
That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard
The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring.
Smell of my violets! I found them where
The liquid South stole o'er them, on a bank
That lean'd to running water. There's to me
A daintiness about these early flowers
That touches me like poetry. They blow
With such a simple loveliness among
The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out
Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts
Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.
I love to go in the capricious days
Of April and hunt violets; when the rain
Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod
So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.
It may be deem'd unmanly, but the wise
Read nature like the manuscript of heaven
And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!
Ye spirits of habitual unrest,
And read it when the "fever of the world"
Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life
Hath yet one spring unpoison'd, it will be
Like a beguiling music to its flow,
And you will no more wonder that I love
To hunt for violets in the April time.
Scheme | XXAB XCDXXXXEBXFXXXXEXFXGXHXCXXXAGXHXEFXD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 01001011 110101 11011101 11000110 11110010111 0011110001 1001011101 1111110011 011101011 1001010100 1100110101 0101010101 1001110001 1101010011 1101010111 11010100111 0101010111 1111001111 01011101101 1111010111 010111010 1101110011 11010101 0101110011 111111 1101110101 1111000101 11001100101 10011100011 11001010101 11111101 1101010110 01010110011 1101010001 0111010101 1111010011 11111111 1001010111 0111110111 11110000101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,610 |
Words | 310 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 36 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 631 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 168 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:34 min read
- 5 Views
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"April." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56257/april.>.
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