Analysis of The Sunset
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)
There late was One within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky,
Genius and death contended. None may know
The sweetness of the joy which made his breath
Fail, like the trances of the summer air,
When, with the Lady of his love, who then
First knew the unreserve of mingled being,
He walked along the pathway of a field
Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er,
But to the west was open to the sky.
There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers
And the old dandelion's hoary beard,
And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay
On the brown massy woods -- and in the east
The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose
Between the black trunks of the crowded trees,
While the faint stars were gathering overhead--
'Is it not strange, Isabel,' said the youth,
'I never saw the sun? We will walk here
To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.'
That night the youth and lady mingled lay
In love and sleep--but when the morning came
The lady found her lover dead and cold.
Let none believe that God in mercy gave
That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild,
But year by year lived on--in truth I think
Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles,
And that she did not die, but lived to tend
Her agèd father, were a kind of madness,
If madness 'tis to be unlike the world.
For but to see her were to read the tale
Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts
Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;--
Her eyes were black and lustreless and wan:
Her eyelashes were worn away with tears,
Her lips and cheeks were like things dead--so pale;
Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins
And weak articulations might be seen
Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self
Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day,
Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
'Inheritor of more than earth can give,
Passionless calm and silence unreproved,
Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest,
And are the uncomplaining things they seem,
Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love;
Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were-- Peace!'
This was the only moan she ever made.
Scheme | ABCXXXXAXXCDXXXEXXXXXXF EXDXXXXXXXGXXXXGXXXEF XBXXXXX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110111010 11010111001 1101011101 1001010111 0101011111 110110101 1101011111 110111010 110101101 11010111010 1101110101 1101111111 1101010101 10110101010 0011101 010101111 101110001 01010111 0101110101 10110100101 111110101 1101011111 1101111111 1101010101 0101110101 0101010101 1101110101 1101011111 1111110111 0100010011 0111111111 01110001110 1101110101 1111001101 1011111111 0101010101 01010101 010010111 0101011111 01010111001 011111 1101011111 1111010101 1111110111 0100111111 110101 1001111111 0101111 1111001111 111111001 1101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,185 |
Words | 420 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 23, 21, 7 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 576 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 138 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 2:06 min read
- 160 Views
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"The Sunset" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29279/the-sunset>.
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