Analysis of A Baby's Death
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world's girth
What things are writ in heaven's full scroll.
Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time's control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A little soul.
The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
The little feet?
A rose in June's most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.
Their pilgrimage's period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.
The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?
We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.
Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The little hands.
The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
The little eyes?
Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?
No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
The little eyes.
Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
So strait the wide world's range,
He would not stay to wonder why
Was life so strange?
Was earth's fair house a joyless grange
Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?
That here at once his soul put by
All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
'Was life so strange?'
Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man's child were,
Angel by name.
Rose-bright and warm from heaven's own heart he came,
And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth's wan face with shame.
His little light of life was all too rare
And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
Angel by name.
The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
The song that smiled.
His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.
But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
The song that smiled.
Scheme | abaB bab abaB cdcD dcd xdcD efeF fef cfxF ghgH hgx gfcH ijiJ jij ijiJ klxL lkl klkL mckN non onmN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01011111 111100111 101111111 0101 101111111 110011111 111101011 1011111 01110101 11011111 0101 01011101 11010111 11110111 0101 0101111 11110101 11110101 11100 01111101 11011101 0101 01011101 11010111 11111101 0101 11111101 11110111 111111001 11011111 10111011 11110101 0101 01011101 11011101 11111101 0101 11111111 111101011 1101110 11111101 1101111 11110101 0101 11111101 110111 11111101 1111 1111011 011111 111111101 11111111 111101 011100111 1111 10111111011 0111 1111110110 1011 11011101111 0111 0111011111 1101111111 0101 10111110111 1011 011101111 11011111 11111011 0111 11110100101 1011010101 111100010 111101111 1011000101 1111110111 0111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,678 |
Words | 493 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 21 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4 |
Lines Amount | 77 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 102 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 18, 2023
- 2:32 min read
- 385 Views
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"A Baby's Death" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1225/a-baby%27s-death>.
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