Analysis of Our Lives
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Our lives are songs. God writes the words,
And we set them to music at pleasure;
And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad,
As we choose to fashion the measure.
We must write the music, whatever the song,
Whatever its rhyme, or metre;
And if it is sad, we can make it glad,
Or if sweet, we can make it sweeter.
One has a song that is free and strong;
But the music he writes is minor;
And the sad, sad strain is replete with pain,
And the singer becomes a repiner.
And he thinks God gave him a dirge-like lay,
Nor knows that the words are cheery;
And the song seems lonely and solemn-only
Because the music is dreary.
And the song of another has through the words
An under current of sadness;
But he sets it to music of ringing chords,
And makes it a pean of gladness.
So whether our songs are sad or not,
We can give the world more pleasure,
And better ourselves, by setting the words
To a glad, triumphant measure.
Scheme | ABCB DBCB DBXB XEEE AXXA XBAB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (67%) |
Metre | 101111101 0111110110 001111111 111110010 1110101001 1011110 0111111111 111111110 110111101 101011110 0011110111 00100101 0111110111 11101110 00111001010 01010110 00110101101 11010110 11111101101 0110111 1101011111 11101110 01000111001 10101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 905 |
Words | 182 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 118 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 79 Views
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"Our Lives" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10746/our-lives>.
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