Analysis of Human Life’s Mystery
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 (Kelloe) – 1861 (Florence)
We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born…
For earnest or for jest?
The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,
We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out blindly to a mark
Believed in, but not seen.
We vibrate to the pant and thrill
Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God’s seat;
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will
Expands from world to world.
And, in the tumult and excess
Of act and passion under sun,
We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far,
As silver star did touch with star,
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness
Through all things that are done.
God keeps His holy mysteries
Just on the outside of man’s dream;
In diapason slow, we think
To hear their pinions rise and sink,
While they float pure beneath His eyes,
Like swans adown a stream.
Abstractions, are they, from the forms
Of His great beauty?—exaltations
From His great glory?—strong previsions
Of what we shall be?—intuitions
Of what we are—in calms and storms,
Beyond our peace and passions?
Things nameless! which, in passing so,
Do stroke us with a subtle grace.
We say, ‘Who passes?’—they are dumb.
We cannot see them go or come:
Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow
Upon a blind man’s face.
Yet, touching so, they draw above
Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown,
Our daily joy and pain advance
To a divine significance,
Our human love—O mortal love,
That light is not its own!
And sometimes horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic Things,
And we wrap round us for defence
Our purple manners, moods of sense—
As angels from the face of God
Stand hidden in their wings.
And sometimes through life’s heavy swound
We grope for them!—with strangled breath
We stretch our hands abroad and try
To reach them in our agony,—
And widen, so, the broad life-wound
Which soon is large enough for death.
Scheme | ABCDAB EXFFEX GHIIGH JKLLXK XMNNXM OJJJOX PQRRPQ STXXST XUVVXU BWDCXW |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (25%) Tetractys (22%) |
Metre | 11011101 11011111 01110100 11110111 01001101 110111 01010101 01010101 111101 01111101 11110101 010111 11010101 1010011 01010111 110010111 010011111 011111 0001001 11010101 10111101 11011111 01110100 111111 11110100 11011111 01111 1111101 11110111 11101 01011101 111101 1111011 111111 11110101 01101010 11010101 11110101 11110111 11011111 11011111 010111 11011101 1010111001 101010101 10010100 101011101 111111 001101101 11111101 01111101 101010111 11010111 110011 00111101 11111101 111010101 111010100 01010111 11110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,233 |
Words | 367 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 158 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:50 min read
- 208 Views
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"Human Life’s Mystery" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10231/human-life%E2%80%99s-mystery>.
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