Analysis of The Assar Mahal - Ruins near Agra
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
ALAS, o’er the palace in ruins,
Time has past with a terrible trace—
Yet still the vast shrine and the temple
Seem to speak of a mightier race
Than ours, which exists by the minute,
And builds but by contract and steam,
Till the spirit has no where to wander,
And the heart has no rest for its dream.
But here in the desolate palace,
So stedfast amid its decay,
With its vast halls and sculptures remaining,
The builder alone past away:
What visions arise up before us,
The infinite and the unknown,
Now hidden and vague as the meaning,
Concealed in each strangely carved stone!
Who knows but those mystical letters*
Might yield every secret of time—
Could the past be restored to the present,
Methinks ’twere a union sublime :
The past—dreaming, high and ideal,
The present—keen, selfish and wise,
’Twould be like the glorious old Grecian,
And again steal the fire from the skies.
We now make existence too actual,
’Twere better to float down the stream,
At the will of the wind and the current,
The best of our being a dream.
Alas, did I judge from experience,
Whatever the future may be,
I’d but ask of the past its illusions,
They were all that are precious to me.
* Most of the ancient buildings are covered with hieroglyphics.
Scheme | ABCBXDXD EFGFEHGH XIJIXKXK CDJDXLAL X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011010010 111101001 110110010 111101001 1101011010 0111101 1010111110 001111111 110010010 1101101 1111010010 01001101 110011011 01000001 110011010 01011011 111110010 111001011 1011011010 1101001 01101001 01011001 1110100110 0011010101 1110101100 11011101 1011010010 011101001 0111110100 1001011 1111011010 101111011 11010101101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,218 |
Words | 222 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 1 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 193 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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