Analysis of The Terrestrial Paradise. (From Dante. Purgatorio, XXVIII.)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Longing already to search in and round
The heavenly forest, dense and living-green,
Which tempered to the eyes the newborn day,
Withouten more delay I left the bank,
Crossing the level country slowly, slowly,
Over the soil, that everywhere breathed fragrance.
A gently-breathing air, that no mutation
Had in itself, smote me upon the forehead,
No heavier blow, than of a pleasant breeze,
Whereat the tremulous branches readily
Did all of them bow downward towards that side
Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain;
Yet not from their upright direction bent
So that the little birds upon their tops
Should cease the practice of their tuneful art;
But with full-throated joy, the hours of prime
Singing received they in the midst of foliage
That made monotonous burden to their rhymes,
Even as from branch to branch it gathering swells,
Through the pine forests on the shore of Chiassi,
When Aeolus unlooses the Sirocco.
Already my slow steps had led me on
Into the ancient wood so far, that I
Could see no more the place where I had entered.
And lo! my further course cut off a river,
Which, tow'rds the left hand, with its little waves,
Bent down the grass, that on its margin sprang.
All waters that on earth most limpid are,
Would seem to have within themselves some mixture,
Compared with that, which nothing doth conceal,
Although it moves on with a brown, brown current,
Under the shade perpetual, that never
Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIEJGKLMNOPQFDRSTUVWXUYZU1 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001011001 01001010101 1101010101 11011101 10010101010 1001110110 01010111010 10011101010 11001110101 1010010100 11111100111 1111101010 1111010101 1101010111 1101011101 11110101011 10011001110 11010010111 101111111001 1011010111 11101 0101111111 0101011111 11110111110 01110111010 1101111101 1101111101 110111111 11110101110 0111110101 1111101110 10010100110 1101101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,437 |
Words | 257 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 33 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,165 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 255 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 18, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 102 Views
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"The Terrestrial Paradise. (From Dante. Purgatorio, XXVIII.)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18945/the-terrestrial-paradise.-%28from-dante.-purgatorio%2C-xxviii.%29>.
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