Analysis of A Supplication
Abraham Cowley 1618 (London) – 1667 (London)
Awake, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master's humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
Though so exalted she
And I so lowly be
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Hark, how the strings awake!
And, though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try;
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.
Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound,
And she to wound, but not to cure,
Too weak too wilt thou prove
My passion to remove;
Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love.
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!
For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
All thy vain mirth lay by,
Bid thy strings silent lie,
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.
Scheme | ABBACCC DEEDFFF GHHGIIX ABBAFFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010111 0111010101 011101 1110101 110101 011101 1011001111100 110101 0101010111 011101 0111001001 111101 111101 01010101101 111101 1101111101 111111 01111111 111111 110101 11101110011 110111 1111011101 011101 11010001 111111 111101 110111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 914 |
Words | 173 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 52 sec read
- 277 Views
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