Analysis of Dies Irae.

Robert Crawford 1959 (Bellshill)



The last great Day it may be near,
Or Man may pass ere it comes here.
There may be nothing but weeds and flowers
Over the Earth in her dying hours;
Men, beasts and birds may all be gone
Ere the world's disaster shall come on;
Or there may be neither grass nor trees,
But stony wastes round the ashen seas —
No life to take when the days are dead,
And God is doing the thing He said;
Nothing but Desolation's wing
Like a sunless mist o'er everything!
And all the millions long, long gone,
To ashes turned in Oblivion;
And the last great Day shall but consume
The bones of a world in its fiery tomb,
As God puts by for ever and aye
The thought of the sorrow that's passed away!


Scheme ABCCDEFFGGHHDIJJKL
Poetic Form
Metre 01111111 11111111 1111011010 1001001010 11011111 101010111 111110111 110110101 111110111 011100111 10111 10111010 01010111 110100100 001111101 01101011001 111111001 0110101101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 668
Words 136
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 18
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 523
Words per stanza (avg) 134
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
103

Robert Crawford

Robert Crawford FRSE FBA is a Scottish poet, scholar and critic. He is currently Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.  more…

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