Analysis of Spring

Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 (Stratford, London) – 1889 (Dublin)



Nothing is so beautiful as spring --
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. -- Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.


Scheme ABBAABBA CACACA
Poetic Form
Metre 101110011 11011101001 1111011001 101001011101 01111101111 010110111 001011111001 110010111111 111110111 0110111000010 01010110111 011111010110 10010100101 111111010010
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 704
Words 129
Sentences 5
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 39
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 270
Words per stanza (avg) 64
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

39 sec read
464

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Reverend Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S. more…

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