Analysis of Since We Must Die
Though we must die, I would not die
When fields are brown and bleak,
When wild-geese stream across the sky,
And the cart-lodge timbers creak.
For it would be so lone and drear
To sleep beneath the snow,
When children carol Christmas cheer,
And Christmas rafters glow.
Nor would I die, though we must die,
When yeanlings blindly bleat,
When the cuckoo laughs, and lovers sigh,
And O, to live is sweet!
When cowslips come again, and Spring
Is winsome with their breath,
And Life's in love with everything-
With everything but Death.
Let me not die, though we must die,
When bowls are brimmed with cream,
When milch-cows in the meadows lie,
Or wade amid the stream;
When dewy-dimpled roses smile
To see the face of June,
And lad and lass meet at the stile,
Or roam beneath the moon.
Since we must die, then let me die
When flows the harvest ale,
When the reaper lays the sickle by,
And taketh down the flail;
When all we prized, and all we planned,
Is ripe and stored at last,
And Autumn looks across the land,
And ponders on the past:
Then let me die.
Scheme | ABABCDCD AAAXEFEF AGAGHIHI AJAJKLKLA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 111101 11110101 0011101 11111101 110101 11010101 010101 11111111 11101 10110101 011111 1110101 110111 0101110 11011 11111111 111111 1110011 110101 11010101 110111 01011101 110101 11111111 110101 101010101 010101 11110111 110111 01010101 010101 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,025 |
Words | 197 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 9 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 204 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 88 Views
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"Since We Must Die" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/788/since-we-must-die>.
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