Analysis of Gentleness

Archibald Lampman 1861 (Upper Canada) – 1899 (Ottawa, Canada)



Blind multitudes that jar confusedly
At strife, earth's children, will ye never rest
From toils made hateful here, and dawns distressed
With ravelling self-engendered misery?
And will ye never know, till sleep shall see.
Your graves, how dreadful and how dark indeed
Are pride, self-will, and blind-voiced anger, greed,
And malice with its subtle cruelty?

How beautiful is gentleness, whose face
Like April sunshine, or the summer rain,
Swells everywhere the buds of generous thought?
So easy, and so sweet it is; its grace
Smoothes out so soon the tangled knots of pain.
Can ye not learn it? will ye not be taught?


Scheme XAABBCCB DEFDEF
Poetic Form
Metre 110111 1111011101 1111010101 111010100 0111011111 1111001101 1111011101 010111010 1100110011 110110101 1100111001 1100111111 1111010111 1111111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 610
Words 105
Sentences 8
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 244
Words per stanza (avg) 52
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

31 sec read
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Archibald Lampman

Archibald Lampman FRSC was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in English." Lampman is classed as one of Canada's Confederation Poets, a group which also includes Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. more…

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