Analysis of Joy Of My Life While Left Me Here!

Henry Vaughan 1621 (Brecknockshire) – 1695



Joy of my life while left me here!
And still my love!
How in thy absence thou dost steer
Me from above!
A life well led
This truth commends,
With quick or dead
It never ends.

Stars are of mighty use; the night
Is dark, and long;
The road foul; and where one goes right,
Six may go wrong.
One twinkling ray,
Shot o'er some cloud,
May clear much away,
And guide a crowd.

God's saints are shining lights: who stays
Here long must pass
O'er dark hills, swift streams, and steep ways
As smooth as glass;
But these all night,
Like candles, shed
Their beams, and light
Us into bed.

They are, indeed, our pillar-fires,
Seen as we go;
They are that city's shining spires
We travel to:
A swordlike gleam
Kept man for sin
First
out
; this beam
Will guide them
in.


Scheme XAXABCBC DEDEFGFG HIHIDBDB XXXXJKXXJXK
Poetic Form Tetractys  (51%)
Metre 11111111 0111 10110111 1101 0111 1101 1111 1101 11110101 1101 01101111 1111 11001 11011 11101 0101 11110111 1111 101111011 1111 1111 1101 1101 1011 1101101010 1111 11110101 1101 011 1111 1 1 11 111 0
Closest metre Iambic dimeter
Characters 728
Words 146
Sentences 9
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 11
Lines Amount 35
Letters per line (avg) 16
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 143
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 30, 2023

45 sec read
49

Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan was a Welsh author, physician and metaphysical poet. Vaughan and his twin brother, the hermetic philosopher and alchemist Thomas Vaughan, were the sons of Thomas Vaughan and his wife Denise of 'Trenewydd', Newton, in Brecknockshire, Wales. Their grandfather, William, was the owner of Tretower Court. Vaughan spent most of his life in the village of Llansantffraed, near Brecon, where he is also buried. more…

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