Analysis of A Prelude, And A Bird's Song.
Kate Seymour Maclean 1836 ( Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania) – 1918 ( New York)
The poet's song, and the bird's,
And the waters' that chant as they run
And the waves' that kiss the beach,
And the wind's--they are but one.
He who may read their words,
And the secret hid in each,
May know the solemn monochords
That breathe in vast still places;
And the voices of myriad races,
Shy, and far-off from man,
That hide in shadow and sun,
And are seen but of him who can
To him the awful face is shown
Swathed in a cloud wind-blown
Of Him, who from His secret throne,
In some void, shadowy, and unknown land
Comes forth to lay His mighty hand
On the sounding organ keys,
That play deep thunder-marches,
Like the rush and the roar of seas,
And fill the cavernous arches
Of antique wildernesses hoary,
With a long-resounding roll,
As they fill man's listening soul
With a shuddering sense of might and glory.
These he shall hear, and more than these
In bird's song, and in poet's scroll;
Something underneath the whole,
A music yet unbreathed.--unsung--
Unwritten--incommunicable;
Whispered from no mortal tongue:
What seer nor prophet may rehearse
In oracle, or Delphic fable,
Since the old dead gods were young,
And made with man their dwelling-place;
But he shall hear, of all his race,
The dread wherefore of life and death;
He shall behold the ultimates
Of fears and doubts, and scores and hates,
And the sure final crown of faith.
And in his ear the rhythmic verse
Shall sound the steps of that beyond,
Serene, that hastens not, nor waits,
But holds within its depths profound
The mystery of all lives--all fates--
The secret of the universe.
Scheme | ABCBACADDEBEFFFGGHXHDIJJI HJJKJKLXKMMXANXLXNXNL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101001 001011111 0011101 0011111 111111 0010101 110101 1101110 0010110010 101111 110101 01111111 11010111 100111 11111101 0111000011 11111101 1010101 1111010 10100111 01010010 101110 1010101 11111001 10100111010 11110111 01100101 100101 0101101 0101 1011101 11110101 010011010 1011101 01111101 11111111 0111101 110101 11010101 00110111 00110101 11011101 01110111 11011101 010011111 0101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,518 |
Words | 279 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 25, 21 |
Lines Amount | 46 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 608 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 139 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:25 min read
- 1 View
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"A Prelude, And A Bird's Song." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56046/a-prelude%2C-and-a-bird%27s-song.>.
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