Analysis of Diffugere Nives
Alfred Edward Housman 1859 – 1936
Horace, Odes, iv, 7
The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
And altered is the fashion of the earth.
The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear
And unapparelled in the woodland play.
The swift hour and the brief prime of the year
Say to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye.
Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring
Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers
Comes autumn with his apples scattering;
Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs.
But oh, whate'er the sky-led seasons mar,
Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;
Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are
And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.
Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add
The morrow to the day, what tongue has told?
Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had
The fingers of no heir will ever hold.
When thou descendest once the shades among,
The stern assize and equal judgment o'er,
Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue,
No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more.
Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,
Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;
And Theseus leafves Pirithous in the chain
The love of comrades cannot take away.
Scheme | X ABAB CDCX EAEA FAFA GHGH IXIX JDJD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011 0111011101 0100010111 0101010101 0101010101 0101011111 010011 01100011101 1101111111 1101110111 1101111110 1101110100 11111101 1110011101 1011011101 11110111 0110011101 110101011 0101011111 1111111111 0101111101 11110101 0110101010 11110011101 1111001111 1101000111 0101110111 0111001 011110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,209 |
Words | 227 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 121 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 238 Views
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"Diffugere Nives" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/873/diffugere-nives>.
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