Analysis of To an Athlete Dying Young
Alfred Edward Housman 1859 – 1936
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
Scheme | AABB XXCC DDEE FFGG HHII JJKK LLMM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (86%) |
Metre | 01111101 11110101 1011101 01111101 11011101 1011111 0111111 1010101 1111101 11110111 01010101 11010101 1010111 1010011 01011111 1011101 1111101 1111111 1010101 00110101 11011101 01110111 01101101 01010101 0111011 1111011 011111 01010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 953 |
Words | 173 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 108 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 52 sec read
- 244 Views
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"To an Athlete Dying Young" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/936/to-an-athlete-dying-young>.
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