Analysis of I Am
John Clare 1793 (Helpston) – 1864 (St Andrew's Hospital)
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
Scheme | ABAXBB CXCADD EFEFGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111111 11011101001 1101010111 11010001001 11010101001 011101111 0101001101 0101011101 1111011111 101101111 01101011101 1111010101 1111111101 0111010111 1101110101 011101101 10010111 0101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 748 |
Words | 141 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 195 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 43 sec read
- 553 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"I Am" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22241/i-am>.
Discuss this John Clare poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In