Analysis of To Napoleon

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



The heroes of the present and the past
Were puny, vague, and nothingness to thee:
Thou didst a span grasp mighty to the last,
And strain for glory when thy die was cast.
That little island, on the Atlantic sea,
Was but a dust-spot in a lake: thy mind
Swept space as shoreless as eternity.
Thy giant powers outstript this gaudy age
Of heroes; and, as looking at the sun,
So gazing on thy greatness, made men blind
To merits, that had adoration won
In olden times. The world was on thy page
Of victories but a comma. Fame could find
No parallel, thy greatness to presage.


Scheme ABAABCBDECEDCF
Poetic Form
Metre 0101010001 0101010011 1101110101 0111011111 11010100101 1101100111 111110100 1101011101 1100110101 1101110111 110110101 0101011111 11001010111 110110110
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 564
Words 109
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 444
Words per stanza (avg) 107
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
106

John Clare

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

All John Clare poems | John Clare Books

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