Analysis of To A River In Which A Child Was Drowned
Charles Lamb 1775 (Inner Temple, London) – 1834 (Edmonton, London)
Smiling river, smiling river,
On thy bosom sun-beams play;
Though they're fleeting, and retreating,
Thou hast more deceit than they.
In thy channel, in thy channel,
Choak'd with ooze and grav'lly stones,
Deep immersed, and unhearsed,
Lies young Edward's corse: his bones
Ever whitening, ever whitening,
As thy waves against them dash;
What thy torrent, in the current,
Swallow'd, now it helps to wash.
As if senseless, as if senseless
Things had feeling in this case;
What so blindly, and unkindly,
It destroy'd, it now does grace.
Scheme | XABA XCDC BXDX XEAE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (75%) |
Metre | 10101010 1110111 11100010 1110111 01100110 111011 10101 1110111 1010010100 1110111 11100010 1011111 11101110 1110011 111001 1011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 524 |
Words | 89 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 103 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 28 sec read
- 87 Views
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"To A River In Which A Child Was Drowned" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5426/to-a-river-in-which-a-child-was-drowned>.
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