Analysis of A Prayer in Darkness
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,
Pity me not; but let the world be fed,
Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,
Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.
If I dare snarl between this sun and sod,
Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own,
In sun and rain and fruit in season shown,
The shining silence of the scorn of God.
Thank God the stars are set beyond my power,
If I must travail in a night of wrath,
Thank God my tears will never vex a moth,
Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.
Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had
Thought it beat brightly, even on—Calvary:
And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree
Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EXXE FGGF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (75%) |
Metre | 11110111111 1011110111 1011011111 1101110111 1111011101 100111111 0101010101 0101010111 11011101110 1110100111 1111110101 11011111010 1101110111 11110101100 01110101001 1101010011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 732 |
Words | 139 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 129 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 41 sec read
- 61 Views
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