Analysis of An Aurora Borealis
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)
O STRANGE soft gleam, o ghostly dawn
That never brightens unto day;
Ere earth's mirk pale once more be drawn
Let us look out beyond the gray.
It is just midnight by the clock--
There is no sound on glen or hill,
The moaning linn adown its rock
Leaps, but the woods lie dark and still.
Austere against the kindling sky
Yon broken turret blacker grows;
Harsh light, to show remorselessly
Ruins night hid in kind repose!
Nay, beauteous light, nay, light that fills
The whole heaven like a dream of morn,
As waking upon northern hills
She smiles to find herself new-born,--
Strange light, I know thou wilt not stay,
That many an hour must come and go
Before the pale November day
Break in the east, forlorn and slow.
Yet blest one gleam--one gleam like this,
When all heaven brightens in our sight,
And the long night that was and is
And shall be, vanishes in light:
O blest one hour like this! to rise
And see grief's shadows backward roll;
While bursts on unaccustomed eyes
The glad Aurora of the soul.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD XEDE FGFG BHBH XIXI JKJK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11111101 11010101 11111111 11110101 1111101 11111111 0101111 11011101 01010101 11010101 11111 10110101 1111111 011010111 11001101 11110111 11111111 1101101101 01010101 10010101 11111111 1110100101 00111101 01110001 111101111 0111101 1110101 01010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,008 |
Words | 187 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 130 Views
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"An Aurora Borealis" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7986/an-aurora-borealis>.
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