Analysis of Absolution
Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
There was an hour when we were loth to part
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,
What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
Metre | 01010101101 1101011111 11101111111 01011010111 1011010101 01110101111 1101010111 1101011101 11110110111 11111111110 1101110011 1111110110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 542 |
Words | 107 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 12 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 138 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 35 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 32 sec read
- 211 Views
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"Absolution" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34835/absolution>.
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