Analysis of Hunger

Gamaliel Bradford 1863 (Boston, Massachusetts) – 1932



I've been a hopeless sinner, but I understand a
saint,
Their bend of weary knees and their con-
tortions long and faint,
And the endless pricks of conscience, like a hundred
thousand pins,
A real perpetual penance for imaginary sins.

I love to wander widely, but I understand a cell,
Where you tell and tell your beads because you've
nothing else to tell,
Where the crimson joy of flesh, with all its wild
fantastic tricks,
Is forgotten in the blinding glory of the crucifix.

I cannot speak for others, but my inmost soul is
torn
With a battle of desires making all my life forlorn.
There are moments when I would untread the paths
that I have trod.
I'm a haunter of the devil, but I hunger after God.


Scheme XAXAXBB CXCXDD XEEXFF
Poetic Form
Metre 110101011010 1 111101011 1101 001011101010 101 01010010101001 1111010110101 1110111011 10111 10101111111 0101 10100010101010 110111011111 1 101010101011101 1110111101 1111 10110101110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 691
Words 131
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 7, 6, 6
Lines Amount 19
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 184
Words per stanza (avg) 43
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 12, 2023

40 sec read
117

Gamaliel Bradford

Gamaliel Bradford was an American biographer, critic, poet, and dramatist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the sixth of seven men called Gamaliel Bradford in unbroken succession, of whom the first, Gamaliel Bradford, was a great-grandson of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. His grandfather, Dr. Gamaliel Bradford of Boston, was a noted abolitionist. more…

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