Analysis of A Morning Fancy
I drifted (or I seemed to) in a boat
Upon the surface of a shoreless sea
Whereon no ship nor anything did float,
Save only the frail bark supporting me;
And that-it was so shadowy-seemed to be
Almost from out the very vapors wrought
Of the great ocean underneath its keel;
And all that blue profound appeared as naught
But thicker sky, translucent to reveal,
Miles down, whatever through its spaces glided,
Or at the bottom traveled or abided.
Great cities there I saw-of rich and poor,
The palace and the hovel; mountains, vales,
Forest and field, the desert and the moor,
Tombs of the good and wise who'd lived in jails,
And seas of denser fluid, white with sails
Pushed at by currents moving here and there
And sensible to sight above the flat
Of that opaquer deep. Ah, strange and fair
The nether world that I was gazing at
With beating heart from that exalted level,
And-lest I founder-trembling like the devil!
The cities all were populous: men swarmed
In public places-chattered, laughed and wept;
And savages their shining bodies warmed
At fires in primal woods. The wild beast leapt
Upon its prey and slew it as it slept.
Armies went forth to battle on the plain
So far, far down in that unfathomed deep
The living seemed as silent as the slain,
Nor even the widows could be heard to weep.
One might have thought their shaking was but laughter;
And, truly, most were married shortly after.
Above the wreckage of that silent fray
Strange fishes swam in circles, round and round
Black, double-finned; and once a little way
A bubble rose and burst without a sound
And a man tumbled out upon the ground.
Lord! 'twas an eerie thing to drift apace
On that pellucid sea, beneath black skies
And o'er the heads of an undrowning race;
And when I woke I said-to her surprise
Who came with chocolate, for me to drink it:
'The atmosphere is deeper than you think it.'
Scheme | ABABBCDCDEE XFXFFGHGHII JKJKKLMLMNN OPOPPQRQRSS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101111001 010101011 11111011 1100110101 01111100111 111010101 101100111 0111010111 1101010101 1110111010 11010101010 1101111101 0100010101 1001010001 1101011101 0111010111 1111010101 0100110101 11111101 0101111101 11011101010 011101001010 0101010011 010101101 0100110101 11001010111 0111011111 1011110101 11110111 0101110101 11001011111 11111101110 01010101010 0101011101 1101010101 1101010101 0101010101 0011010101 1111011101 11110111 010011111 0111111001 1111011111 0101101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,829 |
Words | 339 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 11, 11, 11 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 368 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 84 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:42 min read
- 112 Views
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"A Morning Fancy" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1638/a-morning-fancy>.
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