Analysis of Our Daily Bread
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell
To raise the unknown. It lies before our feet;
There have been men who sank down into Hell
In some suburban street,
And some there are that in their daily walks
Have met archangels fresh from sight of God,
Or watched how in their beans and cabbage-stalks
Long files of faerie trod.
Often me too the Living voices call
In many a vulgar and habitual place,
I catch a sight of lands beyond the wall,
I see a strange god’s face.
And some day this work will work upon me so
I shall arise and leave both friends and home
And over many lands a pilgrim go
Through alien woods and foam,
Seeking the last steep edges of the earth
Whence I may leap into that gulf of light
Wherein, before my narrowing Self had birth,
Part of me lived aright.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IXIB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11110011101 110011101101 1111111011 010101 0111101101 111011111 1110110101 11111 1011010101 010010001001 1101110101 110111 01111110111 1101011101 0101010101 1100101 1001110101 1111011111 01011100111 11111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 776 |
Words | 151 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 123 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 113 Views
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"Our Daily Bread" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6954/our-daily-bread>.
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