Analysis of The Village Bells
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling, at intervals, upon the ear
In cadence sweet, — now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on !
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where mem'ry slept.”
Cowper.
There is a lovely English sound
Upon the English air,
It comes when else had silence found
Its quiet empire there.
All ordinary signs of life
To-day are hushed and still ;
No voice of labour or of strife
Ascends the upland hill.
The leaves in softer music stir,
The brook in softer tune ;
Life rests, and all things rest with her
This Sabbath afternoon.
How fair it is ! how English fair !
No other land could show
A pastoral beauty to compare
With that which lies below.
The broad green meadow-lands extend
Up to the hanging wood,
Where oak and beech together blend,
That have for ages stood.
What victories have left those trees,
What time the winged mast
Bore foreign shores and foreign seas
St. George's banner past.
Each oak that left yon inland wood
In some good ship had part,
And every triumph stirred the blood
In every English heart.
Hence, each green hedge that winds along
Filled with the wild flowers small,
Round each green field, is safe and strong
As is a castle wall.
God, in his own appointed time,
Hath made such tumult cease ;
There ringeth now in that sweet chime
But only prayer and peace.
How still it is ! the bee — the bird —
Float by on noiseless wing.
There sounds no step — there comes no word,
There seems no living thing.
But still upon the soft west wind
These bells come sweeping by,
Leaving familiar thoughts behind,
Familiar, and yet high.
Ringing for every funeral knell,
And for the marriage stave ;
Alike of life and death they tell,
The cradle and the grave.
They chronicle the hopes and fears
Upon life's daily page ;
Familiar to our childish years,
Familiar to our age.
The Sabbath bells upon our path,
Long may their sound endure ;
The sweetest music England hath —
The music of the poor.
Scheme | AXXBXAXC DEDE FBFB CGCG EHEH IJIJ KLKL JMXM NONO PQPQ RSRS TUTU VWVW XYXY ZXZX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011101 1011000101 0101110101 111010101 1010010111 1101110101 111 10 11010101 010101 11111101 1101001 1100111 111101 1111111 010101 01010101 010101 11011110 11001 11111101 110111 010010101 111101 0111101 110101 11010101 111101 11001111 11011 11010101 110101 1111111 011111 010010101 0100101 11111101 1101101 11111101 110101 10110101 111101 1110111 110101 11110101 11111 11111111 111101 11010111 111101 10010101 010011 1011001001 010101 01110111 010001 11000101 011101 010110101 0101101 010101101 111101 01010101 010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,123 |
Words | 362 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 15 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 104 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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"The Village Bells" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/44758/the-village-bells>.
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