Analysis of Life's Lesson Book
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Life is a ponderous lesson-book, and Fate
The teacher. When I came to love's fair leaf
My teacher turned the page and bade me wait.
'Learn first,' she said, 'love's grief';
And o'er and o'er through many a long tomorrow
She kept me conning that sad page of sorrow.
Cruel the task; and yet it was not vain.
Now the great book of life I know by heart.
In that one lesson of love's loss and pain
Fate doth the whole impart.
For, by the depths of woe, the mind can measure
The beauteous unscaled summits of love's pleasure.
Now, with the book of life upon her knee,
Fate sits! the unread page of love's delight
By her firm hand is half concealed from me,
And half revealed to sight.
Ah Fate! be kind! so well I learned love's sorrow,
Give me its full delight to learn tomorrow.
Scheme | ABABCC DEDEFF GHGHCC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010010101 0101111111 1101010111 111111 0100101100101 11110111110 1001011111 1011111111 0111011101 110101 11011101110 011101110 1101110101 1100111101 1011110111 010111 11111111110 1111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 764 |
Words | 151 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 197 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 107 Views
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"Life's Lesson Book" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10685/life%27s-lesson-book>.
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