Analysis of For The New Year
Edith Nesbit 1858 (Kennington, Surrey ) – 1924 (New Romney, Kent)
FLUSHED with a crimson sunrise beauty,
The fair new year its promise gave;
Such dreams we had of love, of duty,
Of heights to scale, of foes to brave!
Oh, how hope's fire our future lighted--
How much to do, how much to know,
Yet on its brink we shrank affrighted
A year ago.
And now the year is done--its pleasure
So brief, so bright--its hours of pain;
Some moments' memories we treasure,
Some recollections loathe in vain.
Oh, for a brain where could not waken
Remembrances of purpose crossed,
Of trusts abandoned, aims forsaken,
And chances lost!
The changing seasons thrust upon us
Another year, fair-faced and new;
What evil have the old years done us
That this in its turn will not do?
This, too, will die, and leave us grieving
For all the ills its arms enfold--
For faiths betrayed, for friends deceiving,
And love grown cold.
We have been fooled. The hopes that fooled us--
We know them now--have been a lie;
The star that led, the light that ruled us--
We scorn them, and we pass them by.
Shut out hope's light; past is the season
When rose-red glow seemed good to see.
Look--by the cold white light of reason,
These things shall be:
A long, dim vista, blank and dreary--
The same hard failure, small success;
The same tired heart, the brain still weary
Of its intense self-consciousness;
The old despair, the old repining,
And, through the future's deepest night,
Down life's untrodden ways still shining,
The old hope's light!
Scheme | ABABXCAC DEDEFGFG HIHIJKJK HLHLFAFA AXAHJMJM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (25%) |
Metre | 11010110 01111101 111111110 11111111 11110101010 11111111 1111111 0101 010111110 111111011 110100110 1010101 110111110 01001101 110101010 0101 010101011 01011101 110101111 11011111 111101110 11011101 110111010 0111 111101111 11111101 011101111 11101111 111111010 11111111 110111110 1111 011101010 01110101 0110101110 11011100 0101011 01010101 1111110 0111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,447 |
Words | 258 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 222 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 40 Views
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"For The New Year" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8826/for-the-new-year>.
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