Analysis of Modern Love XLVIII: Their Sense

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



Their sense is with their senses all mixed in,
Destroyed by subleties these women are!
More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
Utterly this fair garden we might win.
Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near.
Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each.
We drank the pure daylight of honest speech.
Alas I that was the fatal draught, I fear.
For when of my lost Lady came the word,
This woman, O this agony of flesh!
Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh,
That I might seek that other like a bird.
I do adore the nobleness! despise
The act! She has gone forth, I know not where.
Will the hard world my sentience of her share?
I feel the truth; so let the world surmise.


Scheme ABBACDDCEFFEGHHG
Poetic Form
Metre 1111110110 01111101 1111111111 1001110111 0111110111 1011110111 110111101 01111010111 1111110101 1101110011 1001010101 1111110101 11010101 0111111111 101111101 1101110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 693
Words 134
Sentences 16
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 528
Words per stanza (avg) 132
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

40 sec read
52

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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