Analysis of Before Her Portrait In Youth
Francis Thompson 1859 (City of Preston, Lancashire) – 1907 (London)
As lovers, banished from their lady's face
And hopeless of her grace,
Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,
Fondly adore
Some stealth-won cast attire she wore,
A kerchief or a glove:
And at the lover's beck
Into the glove there fleets the hand,
Or at impetuous command
Up from the kerchief floats the virgin neck:
So I, in very lowlihead of love, -
Too shyly reverencing
To let one thought's light footfall smooth
Tread near the living, consecrated thing, -
Treasure me thy cast youth.
This outworn vesture, tenantless of thee,
Hath yet my knee,
For that, with show and semblance fair
Of the past Her
Who once the beautiful, discarded raiment bare,
It cheateth me.
As gale to gale drifts breath
Of blossoms' death,
So dropping down the years from hour to hour
This dead youth's scent is wafted me to-day:
I sit, and from the fragrance dream the flower.
So, then, she looked (I say);
And so her front sunk down
Heavy beneath the poet's iron crown:
On her mouth museful sweet -
(Even as the twin lips meet)
Did thought and sadness greet:
Sighs
In those mournful eyes
So put on visibilities;
As viewless ether turns, in deep on deep, to dyes.
Thus, long ago,
She kept her meditative paces slow
Through maiden meads, with waved shadow and gleam
Of locks half-lifted on the winds of dream,
Till love up-caught her to his chariot's glow.
Yet, voluntary, happier Proserpine!
This drooping flower of youth thou lettest fall
I, faring in the cockshut-light, astray,
Find on my 'lated way,
And stoop, and gather for memorial,
And lay it on my bosom, and make it mine.
To this, the all of love the stars allow me,
I dedicate and vow me.
I reach back through the days
A trothed hand to the dead the last trump shall not raise.
The water-wraith that cries
From those eternal sorrows of thy pictured eyes
Entwines and draws me down their soundless intricacies!
Scheme | AAABBCDEEDCDFGHIIJKJILLKMKMNNOOOPPAPQQRRQNSMMTUIIVVPPW |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011101 010101 1001010011 1001 111101011 010101 010101 01011101 1101001 1101010101 11010111 1101 1111111 110101001 101111 111111 1111 11110101 1010 11010001011 111 111111 1101 110101110110 1111110111 11010101010 111111 010111 1001010101 10111 1010111 110101 1 01101 1111 11101011111 1101 110100101 110111101 1111010111 111101111 110001001 1101011111 110001101 11111 0101010100 01111100111 11011101011 110011 111101 011101011111 010111 110101011101 10111111000 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,805 |
Words | 333 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 54 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,446 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 331 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:41 min read
- 31 Views
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"Before Her Portrait In Youth" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13893/before-her-portrait-in-youth>.
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