Analysis of And so it ends
Victoria Sackville-West 1862 (Paris) – 1936 (Roedean, Sussex)
And so it ends,
We who were lovers may be friends.
I have some weeks in which to steel
My heart and teach myself to feel
Only a sober tenderness
Where once was passion's loveliness.
I had not thought that there would come
Your touch to make our music dumb,
Your meeting touch upon the string
That still was vibrant, still could sing
When I impatiently might wait
Or parted from you at the gate.
You took me weak and unprepared.
I had not thought that you who shared
My days, my nights, my heart, my life,
Would slash me with a naked knife
And gently tell me not to bleed
But to accept your crazy creed.
You speak of God, but you have cut
The one last thread, as you have shut
The one last door that open stood
To show me still the way to God.
If this be God, this pain, this evil,
I'd sooner change and try the Devil.
Darling, I thought of nothing mean;
I thought of killing straight and clean.
You're safe; that's gone, that wild caprice,
But tell me once before I cease,
Which does your Church esteem the kinder role,
To kill the body or destroy the soul?
Scheme | AABBXA CCDDEE FFGGHH IIXXJJ KKLLMM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (27%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0111 11010111 11110111 1101111 10010100 11111 11111111 111110101 11010101 11110111 11010011 11011101 1111001 11111111 11111111 11110101 01011111 11011101 11111111 01111111 01111101 11110111 111111110 110101010 10111101 11110101 11111101 11110111 1111010101 1101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,039 |
Words | 208 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 164 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 41 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 49 Views
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"And so it ends" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37842/and-so-it-ends>.
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