Analysis of A Whirl-Blast from Behind The Hill

William Wordsworth 1770 (Wordsworth House) – 1850 (Cumberland)



A Whirl-Blast from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound;
Then--all at once the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;
There's not a breeze--no breath of air--
Yet here, and there, and everywhere
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Good-fellow were there,
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.


Scheme ABABCCDDEFDGGHHIIJHHKL
Poetic Form
Metre 01110101 110011101 11110111 01011101 110110101 110111 11010101 010101101 11110101 110111010 010101011 1110011 01011101 11011111 1101010 01010101 111101 0101101 11110101 11011001 01110101 010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 809
Words 140
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 22
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 632
Words per stanza (avg) 138
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
155

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was the husband of Eva Bartok. more…

All William Wordsworth poems | William Wordsworth Books

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