Analysis of The Careless Word
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton 1808 (Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan London) – 1877 (London)
A WORD is ringing thro' my brain,
It was not meant to give me pain;
It had no tone to bid it stay,
When other things had past away;
It had no meaning more than all
Which in an idle hour fall:
It was when first the sound I heard
A lightly uttered, careless word.
That word--oh! it doth haunt me now,
In scenes of joy, in scenes of woe;
By night, by day, in sun or shade,
With the half smile that gently played
Reproachfully, and gave the sound
Eternal power thro' life to wound.
There is no voice I ever heard,
So deeply fix'd as that one word.
When in the laughing crowd some tone,
Like those whose joyous sound is gone,
Strikes on my ear, I shrink--for then
The careless word comes back again.
When all alone I sit and gaze
Upon the cheerful home-fire blaze,
Lo! freshly as when first 'twas heard,
Returns that lightly uttered word.
When dreams bring back the days of old;
With all that wishes could not hold;
And from my feverish couch I start
To press a shadow to my heart--
Amid its beating echoes, clear
That little word I seem to hear:
In vain I say, while it is heard,
Why weep?--'twas but a foolish word.
It comes--and with it come the tears,
The hopes, the joys of former years;
Forgotten smiles, forgotten looks,
Thick as dead leaves on autumn brooks,
And all as joyless, though they were
The brightest things life's spring could share.
Oh! would to God I ne'er had heard
That lightly uttered, careless word!
It was the first, the only one
Of those which lips for ever gone
Breathed in their love--which had for me
Rebuke of harshness at my glee:
And if those lips were here to say,
'Beloved, let it pass away,'
Ah! then, perchance--but I have heard
The last dear tone--the careless word!
Oh! ye who, meeting, sigh to part,
Whose words are treasures to some heart,
Deal gently, ere the dark days come,
When earth hath but for one a home;
Lest, musing o'er the past, like me,
They feel their hearts wrung bitterly,
And, heeding not what else they heard,
Dwell weeping on a careless word.
Scheme | AABBCCDD XXEEFFDD XGHHIIDD JJKKXXDD XXLLXXDD XGMMBBDD KKXXMMDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110111 11111111 11111111 11011101 11110111 10110101 11110111 01010101 11111111 01110111 11110111 10111101 10101 010101111 11111101 11011111 10010111 11110111 11111111 01011101 11011101 010101101 11011111 01110101 11110111 11110111 011100111 1101111 01110101 11011111 01111111 11110101 11011101 01011101 01010101 11111101 0111110 01011111 11111111 11010101 11010101 11111101 10111111 01110111 01110111 0111101 11011111 01110101 11110111 11110111 11010111 11111101 110100111 11111100 01011111 11010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,004 |
Words | 379 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 218 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:55 min read
- 107 Views
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"The Careless Word" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4777/the-careless-word>.
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