Analysis of To The Nightingale
Exert thy Voice, sweet Harbinger of Spring!
This Moment is thy Time to sing,
This Moment I attend to Praise,
And set my Numbers to thy Layes.
Free as thine shall be my Song;
As thy Musick, short, or long.
Poets, wild as thee, were born,
Pleasing best when unconfin'd,
When to Please is least design'd,
Soothing but their Cares to rest;
Cares do still their Thoughts molest,
And still th' unhappy Poet's Breast,
Like thine, when best he sings, is plac'd against a Thorn.
She begins, Let all be still!
Muse, thy Promise now fulfill!
Sweet, oh! sweet, still sweeter yet
Can thy Words such Accents fit,
Canst thou Syllables refine,
Melt a Sense that shall retain
Still some Spirit of the Brain,
Till with Sounds like these it join.
'Twill not be! then change thy Note;
Let division shake thy Throat.
Hark! Division now she tries;
Yet as far the Muse outflies.
Cease then, prithee, cease thy Tune;
Trifler, wilt thou sing till June?
Till thy Bus'ness all lies waste,
And the Time of Building's past!
Thus we Poets that have Speech,
Unlike what thy Forests teach,
If a fluent Vein be shown
That's transcendant to our own,
Criticize, reform, or preach,
Or censure what we cannot reach.
Scheme | AABBCC DEEFFFD GGXXXHHXIIXB JJXXKKLLKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111110011 11011111 11010111 01110111 1111111 1110111 1011101 101101 1111101 1011111 1111101 0111010101 111111110101 1011111 1110101 1111101 1111101 1110001 1011101 1110101 1111111 1111111 1010111 1010111 111011 111111 111111 1111111 0011101 1110111 0111101 1010111 111101 100111 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,222 |
Words | 212 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 7, 12, 10 |
Lines Amount | 35 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 227 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 172 Views
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"To The Nightingale" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Nov. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3323/to-the-nightingale>.
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