Analysis of The Spirits for Good
Henry Lawson 1867 (Grenfell) – 1922 (Sydney)
We come with peace and reason,
We come with love and light,
To banish black self-treason
And everlasting night.
We know no god nor devil,
We neither drive nor lead—
We come to banish evil
In thought as well as deed.
And this our grandest mission,
And this our purest worth;
To banish superstition,
The blackest curse on earth.
We come to pass no sentence,
For ours is not the power—
The coward’s vain repentance
But wastes the waiting hour.
’Tis not for us to lengthen
The years of wasted lives;
We come to help and strengthen
The goodness that survives.
We promise nought hereafter,
We cannot conquer pain,
But work, and rest, and laughter,
Will soothe the tortured brain.
That which is lost, we cannot
Restore to any one—
But Truth and Right must triumph,
And Justice must be done!
We come in many guises;
But every one is plain
To each pure thought that rises
Again and yet again.
We are ourselves and human,
And ours our destiny;
The souls of Man and Woman
Divorced by Vanity.
Scheme | ABAB CXCX ADAD EFEF AXAX FGFG XAXA HGHX AIAI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (67%) |
Metre | 1111010 111101 1101110 00101 1111110 110111 1111010 011111 01101010 0110101 110010 010111 1111110 11011010 0101010 1101010 1111110 011101 1111010 010101 1101010 110101 1101010 110101 1111110 011101 1101110 010111 1101010 1100111 1111110 010101 11001010 01010100 0111010 011100 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 963 |
Words | 181 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 85 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 20 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 118 Views
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"The Spirits for Good" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18107/the-spirits-for-good>.
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