Analysis of To A Soldier In Hospital
Winifred Mary Letts 1882 (England) – 1972
Courage came to you with your boyhood's grace
Of ardent life and limb.
Each day new dangers steeled you to the test,
To ride, to climb, to swim.
Your hot blood taught you carelessness of death
With every breath.
So when you went to play another game
You could not but be brave:
An Empire's team, a rougher football field,
The end-perhaps your grave.
What matter? On the winning of a goal
You staked your soul.
Yes, you wore courage as you wore your youth
With carelessness and joy.
But in what Spartan school of discipline
Did you get patience, boy?
How did you learn to bear this long-drawn pain
And not complain?
Restless with throbbing hopes, with thwarted aims,
Impulsive as a colt,
How do you lie here month by weary month
Helpless, and not revolt?
What joy can these monotonous days afford
Here in a ward?
Yet you are merry as the birds in spring,
Or feign the gaiety,
Lest those who dress and tend your wound each day
Should guess the agony.
Lest they should suffer-this the only fear
You let draw near.
Greybeard philosophy has sought in books
And argument this truth,
That man is greater than his pain, but you
Have learnt it in your youth.
You know the wisdom taught by Calvary
At twenty-three.
Death would have found you brave, but braver still
You face each lagging day,
A merry Stoic, patient, chivalrous,
Divinely kind and gay.
You bear your knowledge lightly, graduate
Of unkind Fate.
Careless philosopher, the first to laugh,
The latest to complain.
Unmindful that you teach, you taught me this
In your long fight with pain:
Since God made man so good-here stands my creed-
God's good indeed.
Scheme | ABCBDD XEXEFF GHXHII XJXJKK XCLMNN XGXGMM XLALXX XIXIOO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101111111 110101 1111011101 111111 1111110011 11001 1111110101 111111 1100101011 010111 1101010101 1111 1111011111 110001 1011011100 111101 1111111111 0101 1011011101 010101 1111111101 100101 11110100101 1001 1111010101 1101 1111011111 110100 1111010101 1111 101001101 010011 1111011111 111011 1101011100 1101 1111111101 111101 01010101 010101 1111010100 1011 1001000111 010101 11111111 011111 1111111111 1101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,569 |
Words | 290 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 158 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 104 Views
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"To A Soldier In Hospital" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/43592/to-a-soldier-in-hospital>.
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