Analysis of The State Of Age
George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)
Rub thou thy battered lamp: nor claim nor beg
Honours from aught about thee. Light the young.
Thy frame is as a dusty mantle hung,
O grey one! pendant on a loosened peg.
Thou art for this our life an ancient egg,
Or a tough bird: thou hast a rudderless tongue,
Turning dead trifles, like the cock of dung,
Which runs, Time's contrast to thy halting leg.
Nature, it is most sure, not thee admires.
But hast thou in thy season set her fires
To burn from Self to Spirit through the lash,
Honoured the sons of Earth shall hold thee high:
Yea, to spread light when thy proud letter I
Drops prone and void as any thoughtless dash.
Scheme | ABBAABBACDEFFE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011111 111011101 1111010101 1111010101 11111011101 10111101001 1011010111 1111011101 1011111101 11101101010 1111110101 101111111 1111111101 1101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 619 |
Words | 121 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 485 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 119 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 77 Views
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"The State Of Age" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15662/the-state-of-age>.
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