Analysis of But for the Grace of God
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869 – 1935
“There, but for the grace of God, goes…”
There is a question that I ask,
And ask again:
What hunger was half-hidden by the mask
That he wore then?
There was a word for me to say
That I said not;
And in the past there was another day
That I forgot:
A dreary, cold, unwholesome day,
Racked overhead,—
As if the world were turning the wrong way,
And the sun dead:
A day that comes back well enough
Now he is gone.
What then? Has memory no other stuff
To seize upon?
Wherever he may wander now
In his despair,
Would he be more contented in the slough
If all were there?
And yet he brought a kind of light
Into the room;
And when he left, a tinge of something bright
Survived the gloom.
Why will he not be where he is,
And not with me?
The hours that are my life are mine, not his,—
Or used to be.
What numerous imps invisible
Has he at hand,
Far-flying and forlorn as what they tell
At his command?
What hold of weirdness or of worth
Can he possess,
That he may speak from anywhere on earth
His loneliness?
Shall I be caught and held again
In the old net?—
He brought a sorry sunbeam with him then,
But it beams yet.
Scheme | X ABAB CDCD CECE FXFX XGFG HIHI JKJK XLXL MXMX BNBN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101111 11010111 0101 1101110101 1111 11011111 1111 0001110101 1101 010111 1101 1101010011 0011 01111101 1111 1111001101 1101 01011101 0101 1111010001 1101 01110111 0101 0111011101 0101 11111111 0111 01011111111 1111 110010100 1111 1100011111 1101 11110111 1101 111111011 1100 11110101 0011 110101111 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,123 |
Words | 228 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 77 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 20 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 23, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 151 Views
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"But for the Grace of God" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9952/but-for-the-grace-of-god>.
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