Analysis of A Child of the Snows
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.
Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.
And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.
The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.
Scheme | XXXX XAXA XBBB BCBC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (50%) |
Metre | 1110110111 01001101 1011110101 00110111 1011101001 01101101 10110110101 00110101 0111110101 10100111 110011111 101101101 011110111 10110111 011110111 0011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 630 |
Words | 133 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 120 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 39 sec read
- 107 Views
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"A Child of the Snows" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15958/a-child-of-the-snows>.
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