Analysis of Sonnet LXVI: The Heart of the Night

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)



From child to youth; from youth to arduous man;
From lethargy to fever of the heart;
From faithful life to dream-dowered days apart;
From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;—
Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran
Till now. Alas, the soul!—how soon must she
Accept her primal immortality,—
The flesh resume its dust whence it began?
O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life!
O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late,
Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath:
That when the peace is garnered in from strife,
The work retrieved, the will regenerate,
This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death!


Scheme ABBAACCADEFDEF
Poetic Form
Metre 11111111001 1100110101 1101111101 1111111111 1111011101 1101011111 010100100 0101111101 1111011111 1101011111 1010111111 1101110011 010101010 1111111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 612
Words 119
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 472
Words per stanza (avg) 114
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

35 sec read
110

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. more…

All Dante Gabriel Rossetti poems | Dante Gabriel Rossetti Books

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