Analysis of Lullaby

Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)



Lullaby! Lullaby!
There’s a tower strong and high
Built of oak and brick and stone,
Stands before a wood alone.
The doors are of the oak so brown
As any ale in Oxford town,
The walls are builded warm and thick
Of the old red Roman brick,
The good grey stone is over all
In arch and floor of the tower tall.
And maidens three are living there
All in the upper chamber fair,
Hung with silver, hung with pall,
And stories painted on the wall.
And softly goes the whirring loom
In my ladies’ upper room,
For they shall spin both night and day
Until the stars do pass away.
But every night at evening.
The window open wide they fling,
And one of them says a word they know
And out as three white swans they go,
And the murmuring of the woods is drowned
In the soft wings’ whirring sound,
As they go flying round, around,
Singing in swans’ voices high
A lonely, lovely lullaby.


Scheme AABBCCDDEEFFGEHHIIJJKKLLLAA
Poetic Form
Metre 1010 1010101 1110101 1010101 01110111 11010101 0111101 1011101 01111101 010110101 01011101 10010101 1110111 01010101 01010101 0110101 11111101 01011101 11001110 01010111 011110111 01111111 0010010111 0011101 11110101 1001101 0101010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 861
Words 170
Sentences 9
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 27
Lines Amount 27
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 679
Words per stanza (avg) 168
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 23, 2023

51 sec read
129

Clive Staples Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. He held academic positions at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. more…

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