Analysis of Raphael
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
I shall not soon forget that sight
The glow of Autumn's westering day,
A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,
On Raphael's picture lay.
It was a simple print I saw,
The fair face of a musing boy;
Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe
Seemed blending with my joy.
A simple print,--the graceful flow
Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair,
And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow
Unmarked and clear, were there.
Yet through its sweet and calm repose
I saw the inward spirit shine;
It was as if before me rose
The white veil of a shrine.
As if, as Gothland's sage has told,
The hidden life, the man within,
Dissevered from its frame and mould,
By mortal eye were seen.
Was it the lifting of that eye,
The waving of that pictured hand?
Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky,
I saw the walls expand.
The narrow room had vanished,--space,
Broad, luminous, remained alone,
Through which all hues and shapes of grace
And beauty looked or shone.
Around the mighty master came
The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.
There drooped thy more than mortal face,
O Mother, beautiful and mild
Enfolding in one dear embrace
Thy Saviour and thy Child!
The rapt brow of the Desert John;
The awful glory of that day
When all the Father's brightness shone
Through manhood's veil of clay.
And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild
Dark visions of the days of old,
How sweetly woman's beauty smiled
Through locks of brown and gold!
There Fornarina's fair young face
Once more upon her lover shone,
Whose model of an angel's grace
He borrowed from her own.
Slow passed that vision from my view,
But not the lesson which it taught;
The soft, calm shadows which it threw
Still rested on my thought:
The truth, that painter, bard, and sage,
Even in Earth's cold and changeful clime,
Plant for their deathless heritage
The fruits and flowers of time.
We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our Future's atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.
The tissue of the Life to be
We weave with colors all our own,
And in the field of Destiny
We reap as we have sown.
Still shall the soul around it call
The shadows which it gathered here,
And, painted on the eternal wall,
The Past shall reappear.
Think ye the notes of holy song
On Milton's tuneful ear have died?
Think ye that Raphael's angel throng
Has vanished from his side?
Oh no!--We live our life again;
Or warmly touched, or coldly dim,
The pictures of the Past remain,---
Man's works shall follow him!
Scheme | ABAB XCXC XDXD EFEF GXGX HIHI JKJK LMLM JNJN XBKB NGNG JKJK OMOM XLXX PQPQ RKRK SXSP TUTU XVXV |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (89%) |
Metre | 11110111 0111011 01010101 11101 11010111 01110101 11110111 110111 01010101 1110101 01110101 010101 11110101 11010101 11110111 011101 1111111 01010101 111101 110101 11010111 01011101 11011101 110101 01011101 11000101 11110111 010111 01010101 01011101 110011011 111101 11111101 11010001 101101 11011 01110101 01010111 11010101 11111 01110101 11010111 11010101 111101 11111 11010101 1101111 11101 11110111 11010111 0111111 110111 01110101 10011011 1111100 0101011 110010111 11010111 01101010 11111 0110111 111101101 00011100 111111 11010111 0111101 010100101 01101 11011101 1110111 1111101 110111 111110101 11011101 01010101 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,433 |
Words | 463 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 19 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 76 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 103 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:23 min read
- 127 Views
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"Raphael" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23020/raphael>.
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