Analysis of A Thunderstorm

Archibald Lampman 1861 (Upper Canada) – 1899 (Ottawa, Canada)



A moment the wild swallows like a flight
  Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
  Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
  The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
  The hurrying centres of the storm unite
  And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
  Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
  Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height,
  With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
 And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
 Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
 That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
 Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
 Column on column comes the drenching rain.


Scheme ABBAACCADEFFAE
Poetic Form
Metre 0100110101 11011101001 1001101001 011101011 0100101011 0101110101 1101110101 101001011101 1011111101 0101010101 1001010111 110101101 10110101 1011010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 651
Words 105
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 513
Words per stanza (avg) 103
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

31 sec read
69

Archibald Lampman

Archibald Lampman FRSC was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in English." Lampman is classed as one of Canada's Confederation Poets, a group which also includes Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. more…

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