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

Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–1847). Friends with such literary luminaries as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and William Hazlitt, Lamb was at the centre of a major literary circle in England. He has been referred to by E. V. Lucas, his principal biographer, as "the most lovable figure in English literature". more…

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