Analysis of To the Nightingale
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)
Sister of love-lorn Poets, Philomel!
How many Bards in city garret pent,
While at their window they with downward eye
Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud,
And listen to the drowsy cry of Watchmen
(Those hoarse unfeather'd Nightingales of Time!),
How many wretched Bards address thy name,
And hers, the full-orb'd Queen that shines above.
But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark,
Within whose mild moon-mellow'd foliage hid
Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains.
O! I have listen'd, till my working soul,
Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies,
Absorb'd hath ceas'd to listen! Therefore oft,
I hymn thy name: and with a proud delight
Oft will I tell thee, Minstrel of the Moon!
'Most musical, most melancholy' Bird!
That all thy soft diversities of tone,
Tho' sweeter far than the delicious airs
That vibrate from a white-arm'd Lady's harp,
What time the languishment of lonely love
Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow,
Are not so sweet as is the voice of her,
My Sara - best beloved of human kind!
When breathing the pure soul of tenderness,
She thrills me with the Husband's promis'd name!
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKAKLMNOPQRHSTUVG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10111101 1101010101 1111011101 101111011 01010101110 111111 110101111 0001111101 1111100111 0111110101 111110101 1111011101 11111101 011111011 1111010101 1111110101 110011001 1111111 1101100101 1101011101 11011101 1001010111 1111110110 1101011101 1100111100 1111010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,112 |
Words | 198 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 26 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 881 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 195 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 1:02 min read
- 153 Views
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