Analysis of The Brook
Edward Thomas 1878 (London Borough of Lambeth) – 1917 (Pas-de-Calais)
Seated once by a brook, watching a child
Chiefly that paddled, I was thus beguiled.
Mellow the blackbird sang and sharp the thrush
Not far off in oak and hazel brush,
Unseen. There was a scent like honeycomb
From mugwort dull. And down upon the dome
Of the stone the cart-horse kicks against so oft
A butterfly alighted. From aloft
He took the heat of the sun, and from below.
On the hot stone he perched contented so,
As if never a cart would pass again
That way; as if I were the last of men
And he the first of insects to have earth
And sun together and to know their worth.
I was divided between him and the gleam,
The motion, and the voices, of the stream,
The waters running frizzled over gravel,
That never vanish and for ever travel.
A grey flycatcher silent on a fence
And I sat as if we had been there since
The horseman and the horse lying beneath
The fir-tree-covered barrow on the heath,
The horseman and the horse with silver shoes,
Galloped the downs last. All that I could lose
I lost. And then the child's voice raised the dead.
'No one's been here before' was what she said
And what I felt, yet never should have found
A word for, while I gathered sight and sound.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJKLLMMNNOO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011011001 1011011101 1001010101 111010101 011101110 111010101 10101110111 0101101 11011010101 1011110101 1110011101 1111100111 010111111 0101001111 11010011001 0100010101 0101011010 11010011010 011010101 0111111111 0100011001 0111010101 0100011101 1001111111 1101011101 1111011111 0111110111 0111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,163 |
Words | 228 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 924 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 226 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 06, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 73 Views
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