Analysis of One Word Is Too Often Profaned

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it;
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother;
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heavens reject not, --
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?


Scheme AAAAXBXB CACADEDE
Poetic Form
Metre 1111101 111011 11011001 111011 1111101 110110 0101111 111010 11111111 111011 01001101 0010011 0010101101 1011010 001011001 10111010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 464
Words 93
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 185
Words per stanza (avg) 46
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

27 sec read
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Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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