On Hearing The News From Venice

George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)



(The Death Of Robert Browning)
Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak,
And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier.
Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear:
We are the smitten mortal, we the weak.
We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peak
Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear:
See a great Tree of Life that never sere
Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak.
Such ending is not Death: such living shows
What wide illumination brightness sheds
From one big heart, to conquer man's old foes:
The coward, and the tyrant, and the force
Of all those weedy monsters raising heads
When Song is murk from springs of turbid source.

December 13, 1889.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
89

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXXAABBACDCEDE X
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 672
Words 129
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 15, 1

George Meredith

George Meredith was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. more…

All George Meredith poems | George Meredith Books

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