Analysis of Microcosmos

Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)



I am that fantasy which race has wrought
Of mundane chance-material. I am time
Paeaned by the senses five like bells that chime.

I am that cramped and crumbling house of clay
Where mansoul weaves the secret webs of thought.
Venturer--automaton--I cannot tell
What powers and instincts animate and betray
And do their dreamwork in me. Seed and star,
Sown by the wind, in spirit I am far
From self, the dull control with whom I dwell.

Also I am ancestral. Aeons ahead
And ages back, both son and sire I live
Mote-like between the unquickened and the dead--
From whom I take, and unto whom I give.


Scheme ABB CADCEED FXFX
Poetic Form
Metre 1111001111 10110100111 1101011111 11110100111 111010111 10101101 110010100001 011101101 1101010111 1101011111 1011010101 01011101011 110101001 1111010111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 589
Words 110
Sentences 8
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 3, 7, 4
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 156
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

33 sec read
147

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an eminent English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy". more…

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