Analysis of Nora
Henry Laurie 1837 (Comely Bank, Edinburgh) – 1922 (The Righi, South Yarra)
CALM and fair
Flows the stream of Nora’s life,
Moving with a lazy air
Far from strife.
Goddesses
Must have looked from just such eyes,
Full of still felicities,—
No surprise,
No endeavour
(For endeavour mars perfection),
And, one almost fancies, never
Strong affection.
Far too cold
Seems that face for dream of mine,
Though, if set in sculptured mould,
How divine!
As she stands
Looking from the window forth,
Gazing o’er the sunny lands
To the north,
Light and shade
Cross and quiver to and fro,
By the she-oak’s tresses made,
Waving slow
In the breeze;
But no varying light you trace,
Save from flittings such as these,
On her face.
Calmly moving
On her daily household ways,
Little can you see for loving,
Much for praise.
One alone
Sets her quiet life aglow,
And, whene’er she hears his tone,
Then, I know
That her form
Has a richer, fuller grace,
And the colour rushes warm
To her face.
From her eyes
All the hidden life peeps out,
From her lips strange melodies
Float about
All astir,
Thoughts and hopes, unguessed before,
Gleam, till Love can ask of her
Nothing more.
’Tis as though,
Walking on a charmèd shore,
Blind to all the gleam and glow
Which it bore,
On our sight
Flashed the flush of roses blowing,
Dewdrops sparkling in the light,
Rivers flowing;
For at last
One had come, whose star-tipt wand
Woke to gladness, as he passed
Through the land.
Shall we then
Grudge the favoured one his due?
Fate gives wands to other men,
Charmèd too!
Unaware
While we wander to and fro,
Flowers may blossom here and there
As we go.
Lives are bound
Each to each by secret spell,
And a fairy-land lies round
Us as well.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN OPOP QLQL RNRN DSMS ATET LTLT UOUO VXVX WXWX ALAL YZYZ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (94%) |
Metre | 101 101111 1010101 111 100 1111111 1111 101 1010 10101010 0111010 1010 111 1111111 1110101 101 111 1010101 1010101 101 101 1010101 1011101 101 001 11100111 111111 101 1010 101011 10111110 111 101 1010101 011111 111 101 1010101 001101 101 101 1010111 1011100 101 11 101101 1111110 101 111 1010111 1110101 111 1101 10111010 110001 1010 111 1111111 111111 101 111 101111 1111101 111 01 1110101 10110101 111 111 1111101 0010111 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 2,018 |
Words | 297 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 18 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 72 |
Letters per line (avg) | 17 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 70 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 16 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 69 Views
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"Nora" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17697/nora>.
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