Analysis of Unsolved
John McCrae 1872 (Guelph) – 1918 (Boulogne-sur-Mer)
Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,
God made me look into a woman's eyes;
And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,
Knew in a moment that the eternal skies
Were measured but in inches, to the quest
That lay before me in that mystic gaze.
"Surely I have been errant: it is best
That I should tread, with men their human ways."
God took the teacher, ere the task was learned,
And to my lonely books again I turned.
| Scheme | ABCBDEDEFGFGHH |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 01111101001 010111101 0111010101 1111011111 111101111 1111010101 0111110101 10010100101 0101010101 1101101101 1011110111 1111111101 1101010111 0111010111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
| Characters | 597 |
| Words | 115 |
| Sentences | 4 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 14 |
| Lines Amount | 14 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
| Words per line (avg) | 8 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 463 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 113 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
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"Unsolved" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23787/unsolved>.
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