Analysis of Love's Infiniteness
John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)
If yet I have not all thy love,
Dear, I shall never have it all,
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
Nor can entreat one other tear to fall,
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent.
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant;
If then thy gift of love were partial,
That some to me, some should to others fall,
Dear, I shall never have thee all.
Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then;
But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall
New love created be, by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, and letters outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears,
For, this love was not vowed by thee.
And yet it was, thy gift being general;
The ground, thy heart, is mine, whatever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
Yet I would not have all yet;
He that hath all can have no more,
And since my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it:
Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it:
But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them, so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.
Scheme | XAXABCBCDAA AEFEXBXBDFA XGHGIHIHDFA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 11110111 1101110111 111110111 0111011101 1101010111 11111111 11010111 111111010 1111111101 11110111 1111111 11111111 1101111111 1101011101 11110100101 010101011 11110111 11111111 01111110100 011111101 11111111 1111111 11111111 01111100101 1111110101 11110011111 11111111011 1101111101 11110111011 1111011100 1101111111 11010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,321 |
Words | 269 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 11, 11 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 339 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 89 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 157 Views
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"Love's Infiniteness" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22553/love%27s-infiniteness>.
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