Analysis of Sonnet VIII
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 (Kelloe) – 1861 (Florence)
What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the-wall
For such as I to take or leave withal,
In unexpected largesse ? am I cold,
Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all ?
Not so; not cold,--but very poor instead.
Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run
The colors from my life, and left so dead
And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
To give the same as pillow to thy head.
Go farther ! let it serve to trample on.
Scheme | ABBCABBCDEDEDF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111100 0101011101 0101110101 0111011101 111111111 001001111 010111110 1111010111 1111110101 1111110111 0101110111 010110111 1101110111 1101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 576 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 445 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 114 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 131 Views
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"Sonnet VIII" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10309/sonnet-viii>.
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