Analysis of Age
Walter De La Mare 1873 (Charlton, London) – 1956 (Twickenham)
This ugly old crone -
Every beauty she had
When a maid, when a maid.
Her beautiful eyes,
Too youthful, too wise,
Seemed ever to come
To so lightless a home,
Cold and dull as a stone.
And her cheeks - who would guess
Cheeks cadaverous as this
Once with colours were gay
As the flower on its spray?
Who would ever believe
Aught could bring one to grieve
So much as to make
Lips bent for love's sake
So thin and so grey?
O Youth, come away!
As she asks in her lone,
This old, desolate crone.
She loves us no more;
She is too old to care
For the charms that of yore
Made her body so fair.
Past repining, past care,
She lives but to bear
One or two fleeting years
Earth's indifference: her tears
Have lost now their heat;
Her hands and her feet
Now shake but to be
Shed as leaves from a tree;
And her poor heart beats on
Like a sea - the storm gone.
Scheme | ABCDDEFAGHIIJJKKIIAALMLMMMNOPPQQRS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011 1001011 101101 01001 11011 11011 11101 101101 001111 1111 11101 1010111 111001 111111 11111 11111 11011 11101 111001 111001 11111 111111 101111 101011 1111 11111 111101 1010001 11111 01001 11111 111101 001111 101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 813 |
Words | 172 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 34 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 19 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 646 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 172 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 16, 2023
- 52 sec read
- 14 Views
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"Age" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56918/age>.
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