Analysis of The Soul's Expression
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 (Kelloe) – 1861 (Florence)
WITH stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground.
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air:
But if I did it,--as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.
Scheme | ABBAABCADEDEDE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111000101 1101010101 1101110101 11010101 0110010101 1101010101 1111010100 10110101001 111111011 1101010101 010110101 1111110101 1111111101 011101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 577 |
Words | 106 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 468 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 103 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 31 sec read
- 225 Views
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"The Soul's Expression" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10402/the-soul%27s-expression>.
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