Baby's Seaside Grave.



("Vieux lierre, frais gazon.")
  
[XXXVIII., 1840.]
  
  
Brown ivy old, green herbage new;
Soft seaweed stealing up the shingle;
An ancient chapel where a crew,
Ere sailing, in the prayer commingle.
A far-off forest's darkling frown,
Which makes the prudent start and tremble,
Whilst rotten nuts are rattling down,
And clouds in demon hordes assemble.
  
Land birds which twit the mews that scream
Round walls where lolls the languid lizard;
Brine-bubbling brooks where fishes stream
Past caves fit for an ocean wizard.
Alow, aloft, no lull - all life,
But far aside its whirls are keeping,
As wishfully to let its strife
Spare still the mother vainly weeping
O'er baby, lost not long, a-sleeping.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
9

Quick analysis:

Scheme A ABXBABAB CDCDEFEFF
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 680
Words 119
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 1, 8, 9

Victor-Marie Hugo

 · 1802 · Besançon
 · 1885 · Paris

Victor Marie Hugo (French: [viktɔʁ maʁi yɡo] (listen); 7 Ventôse year X (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote abundantly in an exceptional variety of genres: lyrics, satires, epics, philosophical poems, epigrams, novels, history, critical essays, political speeches, funeral orations, diaries, letters public and private, and dramas in verse and prose. Hugo is considered to be one of the greatest and best-known French writers. Outside France, his most famous works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris), 1831. In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations (The Contemplations) and La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani. Many of his works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris. He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment. Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism; his work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism and his colossal literary achievement established him as a national hero. He was honoured by interment in the Panthéon.  more…

All Victor-Marie Hugo poems | Victor-Marie Hugo Books

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