Analysis of To a Friend in Elysium
Joachim du Bellay 1525 (Liré) – 1560 (Paris)
So long you wandered on the dusky plain,
Where flit the shadows with their endless cry,
You reach the shore where all the world goes by,
You leave the strife, the slavery, the pain;
But we, but we, the mortals that remain
In vain stretch hands; for Charon sullenly
Drives us afar, we may not come anigh
Till that last mystic obolus we gain.
But you are happy in the quiet place,
And with the learned lovers of old days,
And with your love, you wander ever-more
In the dim woods, and drink forgetfulness
Of us your friends, a weary crowd that press
About the gate, or labour at the oar.
Scheme | ABBAAXXA CXDCXD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101011 110111101 1101110111 1101010001 1111010101 01111101 110111111 11110111 1111000101 010110111 0111110101 0011011 1111010111 010111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 593 |
Words | 113 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 228 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 56 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 62 Views
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"To a Friend in Elysium" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21522/to-a-friend-in-elysium>.
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