Analysis of Melody To A Scene Of Former Times

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



Art thou indeed forever gone,
Forever, ever, lost to me?
Must this poor bosom beat alone,
Or beat at all, if not for thee?
Ah! why was love to mortals given,
To lift them to the height of Heaven,
Or dash them to the depths of Hell?
Yet I do not reproach thee, dear!
Ah, no! the agonies that swell
This panting breast, this frenzied brain,
Might wake my --'s slumb'ring tear.
Oh! Heaven is witness I did love,
And Heaven does know I love thee still,
Does know the fruitless sick’ning thrill,
When reason's judgement vainly strove
To blot thee from my memory;
But which might never, never be.
Oh! I appeal to that blest day
When passion's wildest ecstasy
Was coldness to the joys I knew,
When every sorrow sunk away.
Oh! I had never lived before,
But now those blisses are no more.
And now I cease to live again,
I do not blame thee, love; ah, no!
The breast that feels this anguished woe.
Throbs for thy happiness alone.
Two years of speechless bliss are gone,
I thank thee, dearest, for the dream.
'Tis night--what faint and distant scream
Comes on the wild and fitful blast?
It moans for pleasures that are past,
It moans for days that are gone by.
Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!
I see a dark and lengthened vale,
The black view closes with the tomb;
But darker is the lowering gloom
That shades the intervening dale.
In visioned slumber for awhile
I seem again to share thy smile,
I seem to hang upon thy tone.
Again you say, 'Confide in me,
For I am thine, and thine alone,
And thine must ever, ever be.'
But oh! awak’ning still anew,
Athwart my enanguished senses flew
A fiercer, deadlier agony!


Scheme ABCBDDEFEGFHIIJBBKBLKMMGNNCAOOPPQQRSSRTTCBCBLLB
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101 01010111 11110101 11111111 111111010 111101110 11110111 11110111 11010011 11011101 111111 110110111 010111111 1101011 1110101 11111100 11110101 11011111 1110100 11010111 110010101 11110101 1111111 01111101 11111111 01111101 11110001 11110111 11110101 11110101 11010101 11110111 11111111 110101111 11010101 01110101 110101001 1100101 0110101 11011111 11110111 01110101 11110101 01110101 111101 0111101 010100100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,579
Words 302
Sentences 27
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 47
Lines Amount 47
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 1,231
Words per stanza (avg) 299
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:31 min read
52

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

All Percy Bysshe Shelley poems | Percy Bysshe Shelley Books

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