Analysis of Fountain’s Abbey - 'Alas, alas! those ancient towers
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
Alas, alas! those ancient towers,
Where never now the vespers ring,
But lonely at the midnight hours,
Flits by the bat on dusky wing.
No more beneath the moonlight dim,
No more beneath the planet ray,
Those arches echo with the hymn
That bears life’s meaner cares away.
No more within some cloistered cell,
With windows of the sculptured stone,
By sign of cross, and sound of bell,
The world-worn heart can beat alone.
How needful some such tranquil place,
Let many a weary one attest,
Who turns from life’s impatient race,
And asks for nothing but for rest.
How many, too heart-sick to roam
Still longer o’er the troubled wave,
Would thankful turn to such a home—
A home already half a grave.
The remains of Fountain's Abbey are considered the finest in England. The cloisters are a vast extent of straight vault, three hundred feet long, and forty-two broad; divided lengthways by nineteen pillars and twenty arches; each pillar divides into eight ribs at the top, which diverge and intersect each other on the roof. Here is a large stone basin, the remains of a fountain.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010111010 1101011 11010110 1101111 1101011 11010101 11010101 11110101 11011101 11010101 11110111 01111101 11011101 110010101 11110101 01110111 11011111 11010101 11011101 01010101 001111010100100100101010111111011010110101111100101011001011110110100111010111011100011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,120 |
Words | 188 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1 |
Lines Amount | 21 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 142 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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"Fountain’s Abbey - 'Alas, alas! those ancient towers" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/52584/fountain%E2%80%99s-abbey---%27alas%2C-alas%21-those-ancient-towers>.
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