Analysis of Others, I Am Not the First



Others, I am not the first,
Have willed more mischief than they durst:
If in the breathless night I too
Shiver now, 'tis nothing new.

More than I, if truth were told,
Have stood and sweated hot and cold,
And through their reins in ice and fire
Fear contended with desire.

Agued once like me were they,
But I like them shall win my way
Lastly to the bed of mould
Where there's neither heat nor cold.

But from my grave across my brow
Plays no wind of healing now,
And fire and ice within me fight
Beneath the suffocating night.


Scheme AABB CCDD EECC FFGG
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1011101 11110111 10010111 1011101 1111101 11010101 011101010 10101010 111101 11111111 1010111 1110111 11110111 1111101 010010111 0101001
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 533
Words 103
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 103
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

31 sec read
119

Alfred Edward Housman

Alfred Edward Housman, usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad.  more…

All Alfred Edward Housman poems | Alfred Edward Housman Books

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