Analysis of The Self Banished

Edmund Waller 1606 (Coleshill) – 1687



It is not that I love you less
Than when before your feet I lay,
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain (alas!) for everything
Which I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the spring from the new sun
Already has a fever got,
Too late begins those shafts to shun,
Which Phœbus through his veins has shot.

Too late he would the pain assuage,
And to thick shadows does retire;
About with him he bears the rage,
And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vow'd I have, and never must
Your banish'd servant trouble you;
For if I break, you may distrust
The vow I made to love you, too.


Scheme XAXA BCBC DEDE FXFX GCGC
Poetic Form Quatrain  (80%)
Etheree  (30%)
Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 11111111 11011111 11010101 11011101 0101110 11110111 11111101 01111101 10011011 01010101 11011111 111111111 11110101 0111101 01111101 001101010 11110101 11010101 11111101 01111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 664
Words 137
Sentences 7
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 103
Words per stanza (avg) 27
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

41 sec read
33

Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller, FRS was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1624 and 1679. more…

All Edmund Waller poems | Edmund Waller Books

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