Analysis of Alas! What Boots The Long Laborious Quest
William Wordsworth 1770 (Wordsworth House) – 1850 (Cumberland)
ALAS! what boots the long laborious quest
Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill;
Or pains abstruse-to elevate the will,
And lead us on to that transcendent rest
Where every passion shall the sway attest
Of Reason, seated on her sovereign hill;
What is it but a vain and curious skill,
If sapient Germany must lie deprest,
Beneath the brutal sword?-Her haughty Schools
Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say-
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day
Then all the pride of intellect and thought?
Scheme | ABBAABBACDCEDE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110101001 1101011101 110111001 0111110101 11001010101 1101010101 11110101001 11100111 0101010101 1101111101 0111000111 0101010111 1111110101 110111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 590 |
Words | 108 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 474 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 105 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 32 sec read
- 124 Views
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"Alas! What Boots The Long Laborious Quest" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42134/alas%21-what-boots-the-long-laborious-quest>.
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