Analysis of When Cold in the Earth
Thomas Moore 1779 (Dublin) – 1852 (Bromham)
When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,
Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;
Or, if from their slumber the veil be removed,
Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again.
And oh! if 'tis pain to remember how far
From the pathways of light he was tempted to roam,
Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness, and guided him home.
From thee and thy innocent beauty first came
The revealings, that taught him true love to adore,
To feel the bright presence, and turn him with shame
From the idols he blindly had knelt to before.
O'er the waves of a life, long benighted and wild,
Thou camest, like a soft golden calm o'er the sea;
And if happiness purely and glowingly smiled
On his evening horizon, the light was from thee.
And though sometimes the shades of past folly might rise,
And though falsehood again would allure him to stray,
He but turn'd to the glory that dwelt in those eyes,
And the folly, the falsehood, soon vanish'd away.
As the Priests of the Sun, when their altar grew dim,
At the day-beam alone could its lustre repair,
So, if virtue a moment grew languid in him,
He but flew to that smile and rekindled it there.
Scheme | XAXABCBC DEDEFGFG HIHIJKJK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11001101111 111011001111 11111001101 110101001101 01111101011 10111111011 111101011101 101111001011 11011001011 0111111101 11011001111 101011011101 1001101101001 111011011001 011001001001 111001001111 010101111011 01101101111 111101011011 00100111001 101101111011 101101111001 111001011001 111111001011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,200 |
Words | 227 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 310 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 75 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 99 Views
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