Analysis of Earth's Eternity

John Clare 1793 (Helpston) – 1864 (St Andrew's Hospital)



Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay:
But hath it nothing of eternal kin?
No majesty that shall not pass away?
No soul of greatness springing up within?
Thought marks without hoar shadows of sublime,
Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win
Eternity, stand laughing at old Time
For ages: in the grand ancestral line
Of things eternal, mounting to divine,
I read Magnificence where ages pay
Worship like conquered foes to the Apennine,
Because they could not conquer. There sits Day
Too high for Night to come at--mountains shine,
Outpeering Time, too lofty for decay.


Scheme ABABCBCDDAEADA
Poetic Form
Metre 111111101 1111010101 1100111101 1111010101 110111101 10110111111 0100110111 1100010101 1101010101 1111101 1011011010 0111110111 1111111101 11110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 579
Words 101
Sentences 7
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 465
Words per stanza (avg) 99
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
152

John Clare

John Clare was an English poet in his time he was commonly known as the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet more…

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