Analysis of Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity
John Keble 1792 (Fairford) – 1866 (Bournemouth)
It is so--ope thine eyes, and see -
What viewest thou all around?
A desert, where iniquity
And knowledge both abound.
In the waste howling wilderness
The Church is wandering still,
Because we would not onward press
When close to Sion's hill.
Back to the world we faithless turned,
And far along the wild,
With labour lost and sorrow earned,
Our steps have been beguiled.
Yet full before us, all the while,
The shadowing pillar stays,
The living waters brightly smile,
The eternal turrets blaze,
Yet Heaven is raining angels' bread
To be our daily food,
And fresh, as when it first was shed,
Springs forth the SAVIOUR'S blood.
From every region, race, and speech,
Believing myriads throng,
Till, far as sin and sorrow reach,
Thy grace is spread along;
Till sweetest nature, brightest art,
Their votive incense bring,
And every voice and every heart
Own Thee their God and King.
All own; but few, alas! will love;
Too like the recreant band
That with Thy patient spirit strove
Upon the Red-sea strand.
O Father of long-suffering grace,
Thou who hast sworn to stay
Pleading with sinners face to face
Through all their devious way:
How shall we speak to Thee, O LORD,
Or how in silence lie?
Look on us, and we are abhorred,
Turn from us, and we die.
Thy guardian fire, Thy guiding cloud,
Still let them gild our wall,
Nor be our foes and Thine allowed
To see us faint and fall.
Too oft, within this camp of Thine,
Rebellions murmurs rise;
Sin cannot bear to see Thee shine
So awful to her eyes.
Fain would our lawless hearts escape,
And with the heathen be,
To worship every monstrous shape
In fancied darkness free.
Vain thought, that shall not be at all!
Refuse we or obey,
Our ears have heard the Almighty's call,
We cannot be as they.
We cannot hope the heathen's doom
To whom GOD'S Son is given,
Whose eyes have seen beyond the tomb,
Who have the key of Heaven.
Weak tremblers on the edge of woe,
Yet shrinking from true bliss,
Our rest must be "no rest below,"
And let our prayer be this:
"LORD, wave again Thy chastening rod,
Till every idol throne
Crumble to dust, and Thou, O GOD,
Reign in our hearts alone.
"Bring all our wandering fancies home,
For Thou hast every spell,
And 'mid the heathen where they roam,
Thou knowest, LORD, too well.
"Thou know'st our service sad and hard,
Thou know'st us fond and frail;
Win us to be loved and spared
When all the world shall fail.
"So when at last our weary days
Are well-nigh wasted here,
And we can trace Thy wondrous ways
In distance calm and clear,
"When in Thy love and Israel's sin
We read our story true,
We may not, all too late, begin
To wish our hopes were new.
"Long loved, long tried, long spared as they,
Unlike in this alone,
That, by Thy grace, our hearts shall stay
For evermore Thine own."
Scheme | ABAB XCXC DEDE FGFG HXHX IJIJ KLKL XMXM NONO PQPQ RSRS TUTU VAVA SOSO WXWX YZYZ 1 2 1 2 3 4 3 4 X5 X5 GXGX 6 7 6 7 O2 O2 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (91%) |
Metre | 11111101 111101 01010100 010101 00110100 0111001 01111101 11111 1101111 010101 1110101 1011101 11011101 0100101 01010101 0010101 110110101 1110101 01111111 11011 110010101 01011 11110101 111101 11010101 11011 0100101001 111101 11110111 11011 11110101 010111 110111001 111111 10110111 1111001 11111111 110101 11101101 111011 1100101101 1111101 111010101 111101 11011111 010101 11011111 110101 111010101 010101 110100101 010101 11111111 011101 10111011 110111 1101011 1111110 11110101 1101110 1110111 110111 101111101 0110111 1101111 1100101 10110111 1010101 1110100101 1111001 01010111 11111 1111010101 1111101 1111101 110111 111110101 111101 01111101 010101 10110101 1110101 11111101 1110101 11111111 010101 111110111 11011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,764 |
Words | 509 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 22 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 88 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 97 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:34 min read
- 61 Views
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"Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23561/eighteenth-sunday-after-trinity>.
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