Analysis of My Trust
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
A picture memory brings to me
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother's knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child's blind sense of wrong and pain.
But wiser now, a man gray grown,
My childhood's needs are better known,
My mother's chastening love I own.
Gray grown, but in our Father's sight
A child still groping for the light
To read His works and ways aright.
I wait, in His good time to see
That as my mother dealt with me
So with His children dealeth He.
I bow myself beneath His hand
That pain itself was wisely planned
I feel, and partly understand.
The joy that comes in sorrow's guise,
The sweet pains of self-sacrifice,
I would not have them otherwise.
And what were life and death if sin
Knew not the dread rebuke within,
The pang of merciful discipline?
Not with thy proud despair of old,
Crowned stoic of Rome's noblest mould!
Pleasure and pain alike I hold.
I suffer with no vain pretence
Of triumph over flesh and sense,
Yet trust the grievous providence,
How dark soe'er it seems, may tend,
By ways I cannot comprehend,
To some unguessed benignant end;
That every loss and lapse may gain
The clear-aired heights by steps of pain,
And never cross is borne in vain.
Scheme | AAA BXB CCC DDD AAA EEE FXF GGX HHH FXX III BBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010100111 11010101 1011101 11010101 11010101 01111101 11010111 1111101 1101111 111010101 01110101 1111011 11011111 11110111 1111011 1110111 11011101 1101001 0111011 0111110 1111110 01010111 11010101 011100100 11110111 11011101 10010111 1101111 11010101 11010100 1111111 1111001 11111 110010111 01111111 01011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,205 |
Words | 229 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 81 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 19 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:11 min read
- 91 Views
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"My Trust" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22989/my-trust>.
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