Analysis of The Wise Men
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
That we may lose the way.
Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all the labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise men of yore,
And we know all things but truth.
We have gone round and round the hill
And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And serve the made gods, naming still
The furies the Eumenides.
The gods of violence took the veil
Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.
Go humbly ... it has hailed and snowed...
With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
That we may stray from it.
The world grows terrible and white,
And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
And something much too plain to say.
The Child that was ere worlds begun
(... We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone...)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.
The house from which the heavens are fed,
The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.
Go humbly, humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
That we may travel far.
Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
Through the snow and rain.
Scheme | ABAB CDCCD EFEEF GHGGH IJIJ KBKKB LBLLB MNMMN OPOP QAQXXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111 11011111 01111101 111101 11111101 110101101 1110011 11011111 0111111 11110101 01010101 011111001 01011101 0101 011100101 11000100 01011111 111111 01010100 11011101 11010101 11010101 111111 01110001 01010101 11010001 11011111 01011111 01111101 11110101 11110101 01111101 11010101 011101011 011111101 11111101 01011111 0111111 11010101 01010101 11010101 111101 11010101 11100101 00110101 11011101 011101010 10101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,671 |
Words | 317 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 6 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 126 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 08, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 381 Views
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