Analysis of Modern Love XL: I Bade My Lady Think

George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)



I bade my Lady think what she might mean.
Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one,
And yet be jealous of another? None
Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween,
Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave
The lightless seas of selfishness amain:
Seas that in a man's heart have no rain
To fall and still them. Peace can I achieve,
By turning to this fountain-source of woe,
This woman, who's to Love as fire to wood?
She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood
Against my kisses once! but I say, No!
The thing is mocked at! Helplessly afloat,
I know not what I do, whereto I strive,
The dread that my old love may be alive,
Has seized my nursling new love by the throat.


Scheme ABBACADCEFFEGCCG
Poetic Form
Metre 1111011111 1111011111 0111010101 01110100111 1110111011 01111001 110011111 1101111101 1101110111 11011111011 110100111 0111011111 0111110001 111111111 0111111101 111111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 679
Words 131
Sentences 11
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 515
Words per stanza (avg) 129
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

39 sec read
56

George Meredith

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. more…

All George Meredith poems | George Meredith Books

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