Analysis of Psalm 90
Isaac Watts 1674 (Southampton, Hampshire) – 1748 (Stoke Newington, Middlesex)
Man mortal, and God eternal
A mournful song at a funeral.
Through every age, eternal God,
Thou art our rest, our safe abode;
High was thy throne ere heav'n was made,
Or earth thy humble footstool laid.
Long hadst thou reigned ere time began,
Or dust was fashioned to a man;
And long thy kingdom shall endure
When earth and time shall be no more.
But man, weak man, is born to die,
Made up of guilt and vanity;
Thy dreadful sentence, Lord, was just,
"Return, ye sinners, to your dust."
[A thousand of our years amount
Scarce to a day in thine account;
Like yesterday's departed light,
Or the last watch of ending night.
Death, like an overflowing stream,
Sweeps us away; our life's a dream,
An empty tale, a morning flower,
Cut down and withered in an hour.]
[Our age to seventy years is set;
How short the time! how frail the state!
And if to eighty we arrive,
We rather sigh and groan than live.
But O how oft thy wrath appears,
And cuts off our expected years!
Thy wrath awakes our humble dread;
We fear the power that strikes us dead.]
Teach us, O Lord, how frail is man;
And kindly lengthen out our span,
Till a wise care of piety
Fit us to die, and dwell with thee.
Scheme | AA XXBB CCXX XDEE FFGG HHII XXJJ KKLL CCDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11001010 010110100 110010101 1110110101 11111111 1111011 11111101 11110101 01110101 11011111 11111111 11110100 11010111 01110111 010110101 11010101 1100101 10111101 1111001 110110101 110101010 110100110 1011100111 11011101 01110101 11010111 11111101 011100101 11110101 110101111 11111111 010101101 10111100 11110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,151 |
Words | 229 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 100 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 96 Views
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"Psalm 90" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19845/psalm-90>.
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