Analysis of The Blossing Of The Solitary Date-Tree

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)



Beneath the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the Thrones of
Frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. `What no one
with us shares, seems scarce our own.' The presence of a ONE,

The best belov'd, who loveth me the best,

is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow
globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and all without, that
would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen
and crushes it into flatness.

The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and
lovelier the object presented to the sense ; the more exquisite the
individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and
opportunities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel the ache of
solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him.
What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are
shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them
?

Hope, Imagination, honourable Aims,
Free Commune with the choir that cannot die,
Science and Song, delight in little things,
The buoyant child surviving in the man ;
Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean, sky,
With all their voices--O dare I accuse
My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen,
Or call my destiny niggard ! O no ! no !
It is her largeness, and her overflow,
Which being incomplete, disquieteth me so !

For never touch of gladness stirs my heart,
But tim'rously beginning to rejoice
Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start
In lonesome tent, I listen for thy voice.
Belovéd ! 'tis not thine ; thou art not there !
Then melts the bubble into idle air,
And wishing without hope I restlessly despair.

The mother with anticipated glee
Smiles o'er the child, that, standing by her chair
And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her knee,
Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare
To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight
She hears her own voice with a new delight ;
And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes aright,

Then is she tenfold gladder than before !
But should disease or chance the darling take,
What then avail those songs, which sweet of yore
Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake ?
Dear maid ! no prattler at a mother's knee
Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee :
Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me ?


Scheme ABB C DXBX EFEAXXX XGXXGXXDDD HIHIJJJ FJFJKKC LMLMFFF
Poetic Form
Metre 010110100101011011 1101011010101111 11111101010101 010111101 110110010110111010 11101010111101011 1110101101011010101 01010110 0100110100001000100 1010010101011000 010001001100110110 0100101001100111011 0010001101011011 110110010100100101 1001111111111111011 1 1001011 11010101101 1001010101 0101010001 1101010101 1111011101 1101110111 11110010111 110100010 110001111 110111111 11010101 1011011111 0101110111 1011111111 1101001101 010011110001 010101001 11001110101 0111110101 1101110101 1101011111 1101110101 01010111011 11111101 1101110101 1101111111 0101111101 111110101 11011011111 111111010111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 2,330
Words 427
Sentences 20
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 3, 1, 4, 8, 10, 7, 7, 7
Lines Amount 47
Letters per line (avg) 39
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 230
Words per stanza (avg) 54
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:10 min read
143

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. more…

All Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems | Samuel Taylor Coleridge Books

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