Analysis of Sweet Fern
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
The subtle power in perfume found
Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned;
On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound
No censer idly burned.
That power the old-time worships knew,
The Corybantes' frenzied dance,
The Pythian priestess swooning through
The wonderland of trance.
And Nature holds, in wood and field,
Her thousand sunlit censers still;
To spells of flower and shrub we yield
Against or with our will.
I climbed a hill path strange and new
With slow feet, pausing at each turn;
A sudden waft of west wind blew
The breath of the sweet fern.
That fragrance from my vision swept
The alien landscape; in its stead,
Up fairer hills of youth I stepped,
As light of heart as tread.
I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine
Once more through rifts of woodland shade;
I knew my river's winding line
By morning mist betrayed.
With me June's freshness, lapsing brook,
Murmurs of leaf and bee, the call
Of birds, and one in voice and look
In keeping with them all.
A fern beside the way we went
She plucked, and, smiling, held it up,
While from her hand the wild, sweet scent
I drank as from a cup.
O potent witchery of smell!
The dust-dry leaves to life return,
And she who plucked them owns the spell
And lifts her ghostly fern.
Or sense or spirit? Who shall say
What touch the chord of memory thrills?
It passed, and left the August day
Ablaze on lonely hills.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF CGCG HIHI JKJK LMLM NONO PGPG QRQR |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 010100011 11110101 1101111 110101 110011101 01101 0110101 01011 01010101 010111 111100111 0111101 11011101 11110111 01011111 011011 11011101 01001011 11011111 111111 111111 1111111 11110101 110101 11110101 10110101 11010101 010111 01010111 11010111 11010111 111101 110111 01111101 01111101 010101 11110111 110111001 11010101 011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,310 |
Words | 247 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 106 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:15 min read
- 139 Views
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"Sweet Fern" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23043/sweet-fern>.
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