Analysis of The Past



Oh! how sad the recollection! in the midst of joy it
           springs;
What a train of faded pleasures that fond idea brings!
All those hours are gone for ever—they were sweet, but
           pass'd away
Like the sunny clouds that vanish in the midst of dying
           day.

I have number'd all the sorrows this tortured heart has
           known;
I have counted each delight I would ever call my own;
But the moments are so woven, that the guiding clew is
           gone,
And the sorrow and the pleasure blended into one.

That one—oh! when we parted, it was glittering in that
           tear;
That one—'twas in the accents that told we both were
           dear:

It dwelt in those fond glances, too fleet, too early past;
It lived in that embrace—the tenderest—the last!

The last! oh, in that word there are ages of despair!
No summer thought of brightness can dwell untroubled
           there;
Yet my soul was in that moment so fraught with joy and
           pain,
And ' tis only recollection can give back the soul again!


Scheme XAAXBXB XCCXXX XDXX EE DXDXXX
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 1110010001111 1 10111010110101 1110111101011 101 10101110001110 1 1110101011011 1 11101011110111 10101110101011 1 0010001010011 11111101110001 1 111001011110 1 1101110111101 1101010101 0110111110101 110111011010 1 1111011011110 1 01100101110101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,026
Words 175
Sentences 11
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 7, 6, 4, 2, 6
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 145
Words per stanza (avg) 35
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

53 sec read
80

Louisa Stuart Costello

Louisa Stuart Costello was a writer on travel and French history. Costello was born in Ireland or Sussex. She resided in Paris, France, near the Seine River. She had no true home, but wandered place to place staying with friends and acquaintances. With her brother Dudley Costello, also a well known for his travel writing, they promoted the copying of illuminated manuscript. She wrote over 100 texts, articles, poems, songs and knew such people as Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore. She was a poet, historian, journalist, painter and novelist. Her father was Colonel James Francis Costello, who died in April 1814 while fighting Napoleon. Costello published Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen, which included her illustrations, and several other popular works of poetry and travel. Her collection Songs of a Stranger was dedicated to William Lisle Bowles. She did not return to France until after her mother sent for her in 1815/18 and then lived chiefly in Paris, where she was a miniature-painter. In 1815 she published The Maid of the Cyprus Isle, etc. She also wrote books of travel, which were very popular, as were her novels, chiefly founded on French history. Another work, published in 1835, is Specimens of the Early Poetry of France. She died in Boulogne sur Mer, France of mouth cancer. more…

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