Analysis of The Only Day In Existence

William Taylor Collins 1721 (Sussex) – 1759 (Sussex)



The early sun is so pale and shadowy,

I could be looking up at a ghost

in the shape of a window,

a tall, rectangular spirit

looking down at me in bed,

about to demand that I avenge

the murder of my father.

But the morning light is only the first line

in the play of this day-

the only day in existence-

the opening chord of its long song,

or think of what is permeating

the thin bedroom curtains

as the beginning of a lecture

I will listen to until it is dark,

a curious student in a V-neck sweater,

angled into the wooden chair of his life,

ready with notebook and a chewed-up pencil,

quiet as a goldfish in winter,

serious as a compass at sea,

eager to absorb whatever lesson

this damp, overcast Tuesday

has to teach me,

here in the spacious classroom of the world

with its long walls of glass,

its heavy, low-hung ceiling.


Scheme A X X X X X B X X X X C X B X B X X B A X A A X X C
Poetic Form
Metre 01011110100 111101101 0011010 01010010 1011101 011011101 0101110 10101110011 001111 01010010 010011111 11111100 01110 100101010 1110101111 010010001110 10010101111 1011001110 10101010 100101011 101011010 111010 1111 100101101 111111 1101110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 808
Words 161
Sentences 3
Stanzas 26
Stanza Lengths 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 25
Words per stanza (avg) 6
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
99

William Taylor Collins

William Collins was an English poet. Second in influence only to Thomas Gray, he was an important poet of the middle decades of the 18th century. more…

All William Taylor Collins poems | William Taylor Collins Books

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