Analysis of Best
Helen Hunt Jackson 1830 (Amherst, Massachusetts) – 1885 (San Francisco)
Mother, I see you with your nursery light,
Leading your babies, all in white,
To their sweet rest;
Christ, the Good Shepherd, carries mine tonight,
And that is best.
I cannot help tears when I see them twine
Their fingers in yours, and their bright curls shine
On your warm breast.
But the Saviour's is purer than yours or mine.
He can love best.
You tremble each hour because your arms
Are weak; your heart is wrung with alarms
And sore opprest:
My darlings are safe, out of reach of harm
And that is best.
You know over yours may hang even now
Pain and disease, whose fulfilling slow,
Naught can arrest.
Mine in God's gardens run to and fro,
And that is best.
You know that of yours, your feeblest one
And dearest, may live long years alone,
Unloved, unblest.
Mine entered spotless on eternal years,
Oh, how much the best.
But grief is selfish; I cannot see
Always why I should stricken be,
More than the rest:
But I know that, as well as for them, for me
God did the best.
Scheme | aabaB ccbcb ddaxB xebeB xxaxb ffbfb |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (33%) Tetractys (30%) |
Metre | 10111111001 10110101 1111 1011010101 0111 1101111111 1100101111 1111 1011101111 1111 1101100111 111111101 011 1101111111 0111 1110111101 100110101 1101 101101101 0111 11111111 010111101 011 1101010101 11101 111101101 1111101 1101 11111111111 1101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 955 |
Words | 186 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 126 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 133 Views
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"Best" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17053/best>.
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