Analysis of Carillon
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
In the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended,
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,
Rang the beautiful wild chimes
From the Belfry in the market
Of the ancient town of Bruges.
Then, with deep sonorous clangor
Calmly answering their sweet anger,
When the wrangling bells had ended,
Slowly struck the clock eleven,
And, from out the silent heaven,
Silence on the town descended.
Silence, silence everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
Save that footsteps here and there
Of some burgher home returning,
By the street lamps faintly burning,
For a moment woke the echoes
Of the ancient town of Bruges.
But amid my broken slumbers
Still I heard those magic numbers,
As they loud proclaimed the flight
And stolen marches of the night;
Till their chimes in sweet collision
Mingled with each wandering vision,
Mingled with the fortune-telling
Gypsy-bands of dreams and fancies,
Which amid the waste expanses
Of the silent land of trances
Have their solitary dwelling;
All else seemed asleep in Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city.
And I thought how like these chimes
Are the poet's airy rhymes,
All his rhymes and roundelays,
His conceits, and songs, and ditties,
From the belfry of his brain,
Scattered downward, though in vain,
On the roofs and stones of cities!
For by night the drowsy ear
Under its curtains cannot hear,
And by day men go their ways,
Hearing the music as they pass,
But deeming it no more, alas!
Than the hollow sound of brass.
Yet perchance a sleepless wight,
Lodging at some humble inn
In the narrow lanes of life,
When the dusk and hush of night
Shut out the incessant din
Of daylight and its toil and strife,
May listen with a calm delight
To the poet's melodies,
Till he hears, or dreams he hears,
Intermingled with the song,
Thoughts that he has cherished long;
Hears amid the chime and singing
The bells of his own village ringing,
And wakes, and finds his slumberous eyes
Wet with most delicious tears.
Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay
In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble,
Listening with a wild delight
To the chimes that, through the night
Bang their changes from the Belfry
Of that quaint old Flemish city.
Scheme | aBccdddxA eecffceeeggxA axhhffgiaagaB ddaijjieexkkk hlmhlmhixnnggxx oohhbb |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 00101110 00111010 10101010 10101010 1110111 01010101 1010011 10100010 10101110 1111001 101001110 101001110 10101010 01101010 10101010 101010 1010001 111101 11101010 10111010 10101010 10101110 1011101 11111010 1110101 01010101 11101010 101110010 10101010 10111010 10101010 1010111 1110010 11101010 00111010 0111111 1010101 11101 1101010 1010111 1010101 10101110 1110101 10110101 0111111 10010111 1111101 1010111 1010101 1011101 0010111 1010111 1100101 1101101 11010101 1010100 1111111 010101 1111101 10101010 011111010 0101111 1110101 11111111 01010111 10010101 1011101 11101010 11111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,182 |
Words | 397 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 13, 13, 13, 15, 6 |
Lines Amount | 69 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 297 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 66 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:00 min read
- 81 Views
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"Carillon" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18541/carillon>.
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