Analysis of Geraldine

Henry Kendall 1839 (Australia) – 1882 (Sydney)



My head is filled with olden rhymes beside this moaning sea,
But many and many a day has gone since I was dear to thee!
I know my passion fades away, and therefore oft regret
That some who love indeed can part and in the years forget.
Ah! through the twilights when we stood the wattle trees between,
We did not dream of such a time as this, fair Geraldine.
I do not say that all has gone of passion and of pain;
I yearn for many happy thoughts I shall not think again!
And often when the wind is up, and wailing round the eaves,
You sigh for withered Purpose shred and scattered like the leaves,
The Purpose blooming when we met each other on the green;
The sunset heavy in your curls, my golden Geraldine.

I think we lived a loftier life through hours of Long Ago,
For in the largened evening earth our spirits seemed to grow.
Well, that has passed, and here I stand, upon a lonely place,
While Night is stealing round the land, like Time across my face;
But I can calmly recollect our shadowy parting scene,
And swooning thoughts that had no voice — no utterance, Geraldine.


Scheme AABBCCXXDDCC EEFFCC
Poetic Form
Metre 11111101011101 1100100111111111 1111010101101 11110111000101 1101111010101 11111101111001 11111111110011 11110101111101 01010111010101 11110101010101 01010111110101 0110011110001 1111010011101101 10011011010111 11110111010101 11110101110111 111100110100101 010111111100001
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 1,070
Words 206
Sentences 9
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 12, 6
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 47
Words per line (avg) 11
Letters per stanza (avg) 423
Words per stanza (avg) 102
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 23, 2023

1:01 min read
57

Henry Kendall

Thomas Henry Kendall was a nineteenth-century Australian author and bush poet, who was particularly known for his poems and tales set in a natural environment setting. more…

All Henry Kendall poems | Henry Kendall Books

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