Analysis of To a Pine Tree
Henrik Wergeland 1808 (Kristiansand) – 1845 (Oslo)
Crowned, lofty scion of the pine
Whence Gothic architect’s design
Derived the grace and power
For churches planned in noblest style,
For Notre Dame’s majestic pile,
Westminster Hall, or Münster’s aisle,
Or Pisa’s leaning tower, -
In this dark valley laid aside,
Thou in thy grief thy crown of pride
Dost in the clouds retire;
And far thy somber glance ahs flown
To spires like pine-trees shaped in stone,
Perceiving, with a wistful groan,
The portrait of thy sire.
The dastard axe awaits thy wood:
Like Hercules in dragon’s blood,
Thou in slow flames must die.
Yet perish proudly, pine, for know
Not all of Europe’s skill can show
How such a pyramid may grow,
So stately and so high.
Lament not thou, for many a heart,
Fit model for the loftiest art,
Unknown in rags has pined;
There, brooding over work denied,
Some hero sits, some Tell Untried;
A Byron, Plato, oft has died
Unnoticed by mankind.
You Tell, for lack of tyrant foe,
Wars on the sparrow and the crow,
And he whose brain could soar
To match the master-minstrel’s lays –
Some trumpeter usurps his bays,
While on his rustic pipe he plays
For alms from door to door.
Like theirs, my pine, obscurely placed,
Thy nobleness must run to waste,
With lowly village spires –
Unworthy hovels – must contend,
Thou, Nature’s temple! Fortune send
Thee first a Herostratic end,
Immortalised in fires.
Thou stand’st a nobler temple there,
Thy dome the leaden clouds of air;
No Lateran tapers fling
A beam so radiant and so fine
As those dew-spangled boughs of thine,
What sacred strains are so divine
As those thy linnets sing?
Beneath what temple arches are
Such trophies of victorious war,
So honourably won,
As are these pennons pearly bright,
Flecking thy darkest twigs with white,
Which spiders, in a hard-fought fight,
Have stablished where they spun.
Dim spaces filled with incense fine,
A choir thou hast, a holy shrine,
But ne’er an image there;
For sinless Nature, who did base
Thy root, to God speaks face to face,,
Nor needs, like man, who fell from grace,
To mediate her prayer.
Upon thine organ-pipes the storm
Its wild Te Deum can perform,
So awful, yet so fair:
Join thou, my soul, that anthem’s strain; -
“The house of God is Nature’s fane;
No moss so small, no weed so plain,
But builds a chapel there.”
Scheme | AABCCCB DDXEEEB XXFGGGF HHIDDDI GGJKKKJ LLXMMMX NNOAAAO XJPQQQP AANRRRN SSNTTTN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Burns stanza (56%) Etheree (31%) |
Metre | 11010101 1101001 0101010 11010101 11010101 1011111 111010 01110101 10111111 100101 01110111 11111101 01010101 0101110 0110111 1100101 101111 11010111 1111111 11010011 110011 011111001 1101011 010111 11010101 11011101 01010111 010111 11111101 11010001 011111 11010101 1100111 11110111 111111 111111 111111 110101 01010101 11010101 11011 1010 11010101 11010111 11101 011100011 11110111 11011101 11111 01110101 110101001 111 1111101 1110111 11000111 11111 11011011 010110101 111101 1110111 11111111 11111111 11001 01110101 1111101 110111 11111101 01111101 11111111 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,311 |
Words | 405 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 70 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 177 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 31, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 109 Views
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"To a Pine Tree" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17247/to-a-pine-tree>.
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