Wasted Love

Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)



What shall be done for sorrow
  With love whose race is run?
Where help is none to borrow,
  What shall be done?

In vain his hands have spun
  The web, or drawn the furrow:
No rest their toil hath won.

His task is all gone thorough,
  And fruit thereof is none:
And who dare say to-morrow
  What shall be done?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

18 sec read
72

Quick analysis:

Scheme abaB bab abaB
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 308
Words 62
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 3, 4

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Swinburne wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, cannibalism, sado-masochism, and anti-theism. His poems have many common motifs, such as the ocean, time, and death. Several historical people are featured in his poems, such as Sappho ("Sapphics"), Anactoria ("Anactoria"), Jesus ("Hymn to Proserpine": Galilaee, La. "Galilean") and Catullus ("To Catullus"). more…

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