Analysis of Of English Verse
Edmund Waller 1606 (Coleshill) – 1687
Poets may boast, as safely vain,
Their works shall with the world remain;
Both, bound together, live or die,
The verses and the prophecy.
But who can hope his lines should long
Last in a daily changing tongue?
While they are new, envy prevails;
And as that dies, our language fails.
When architects have done their part,
The matter may betray their art;
Time, if we use ill-chosen stone,
Soon brings a well-built palace down.
Poets that lasting marble seek
Must carve in Latin or in Greek;
We write in sand, our language grows,
And, like the tide, our work o'erflows.
Chaucer his sense can only boast,
The glory of his numbers lost!
Years have defaced his matchless strain,
And yet he did not sing in vain.
The beauties which adorned that age,
The shining subjects of his rage,
Hoping they should immortal prove,
Rewarded with success his love.
This was the generous poet's scope,
And all an English pen can hope,
To make the fair approve his flame,
That can so far extend their fame.
Verse, thus designed, has no ill fate
If it arrive but at the date
Of fading beauty; if it prove
But as long-lived as present love.
Scheme | AAXB XXCC DDXX EEXB XXAA FFGH IIJJ KKGH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (25%) |
Metre | 10111101 11110101 11010111 01000100 11111111 10010101 11111001 011110101 1101111 01010111 11111101 11011101 10110101 11010101 110110101 01011011 10111101 01011101 1101111 01111101 01010111 01010111 10110101 01010111 110100101 01110111 11010111 11110111 11011111 11011101 11010111 11111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,093 |
Words | 204 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 109 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:01 min read
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"Of English Verse" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9315/of-english-verse>.
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