Analysis of A Clock Striking Midnight
Thomas Lovell Beddoes 1803 (Clifton, Bristol) – 1849 (Basel)
Hark to the echo of Time’s footsteps; gone
Thise moments are into the unseen grave
Of ages. Thy have vanished nameless. None,
While they are deep under the eddying wave
Of the chaotic past, shall placea stone
Sacred to these, the nurses of the brave,
The mighty, and the good. Futurity
Broods on the ocean, hatching ‘neath her wing
Invisible to man the century,
That on its hundered feet, a sluggish thing
Gnawing away the world, shall totter by
And sweep dead mortals with it. As I sing
Time, the colossus of the world, that strides
With each foot plunged in darkness silent glides,
And puffs death’s cloud upon us. It is vain
To struggle with the tide; we all must sink
Still grasping the thin air, with frantic pain
Grappling with Fame to buoy us. Can we think
Eternity, by whom swift Time is slain,
And dragged along to dark destruction’s brink,
Shall be the echo of man’s puny words?
Or that our grovelling thoughts shall e’er be writ
In never fading stars; or like proud birds
Undazzled in their cloud-built eyrie sit
Clutching the lightning, or in darting herds
Diving amid the sea’s vast treasury flit?
Sink, painted clay, back to thy parent earth
While the glad spirit seeks a brighter birth.
Scheme | XAXAXABCXCXCDD EFEFEFGBGBGBHH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101111 1101010011 1101110101 111110011 100101111 1011010101 0100011 1101010101 0100110100 111110101 1001011101 0111011111 1001010111 1111010101 0111011111 1101011111 1100111101 10111101111 0100111111 01011111 1101011101 1110111111 0101011111 10111101 1001010101 10010111001 1101111101 1011010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,227 |
Words | 216 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 14 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 475 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 107 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:04 min read
- 69 Views
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"A Clock Striking Midnight" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36772/a-clock-striking-midnight>.
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