Analysis of An Emblem of Life
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton 1808 (Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan London) – 1877 (London)
Oh! Life is like the summer rill, where weary daylight dies;
We long for morn to rise again, and blush along the skies:
For dull and dark that stream appears, whose waters in the day,
All glad, in conscious sunniness, went dancing on their way.
But when the glorious sun hath 'woke, and look'd upon the earth,
And over hill and dale there float the sounds of human mirth;
We sigh to see day hath not brought its perfect light to all,
For with the sunshine on those waves, the silent shadows fall.
Oh! like that changeful summer rill our years go gliding by,
Now bright with joy, now dark with tears, before youth's eager eye.
And thus we vainly pant for all the rich and golden glow,
Which young Hope, like an early sun, upon its course can throw,
Soon o'er our half illumined hearts the stealing shadows come,
And every thought that 'woke in light receives its share of gloom;
And we weep while joys and sorrows both are fading from our view,
To find, wherever sunbeams fall, the shadow cometh too.
Scheme | AABBCCDD EEFFXXGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111010111011 11111101010101 11011101110001 110101110111 110100111010101 01010111011101 11111111101111 110111101011 11111011011101 11111111011101 01110111010101 11111101011111 110101010101011 010011101011111 0111101011101101 110101101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 993 |
Words | 186 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 49 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 390 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 92 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
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