Analysis of Life Is A Privilege
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Life is a privilege. Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,
To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire,
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions – in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling – God! in truth,
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!
Life is a privilege. Like some rare rose
The mysteries of the human mind unclose.
What marvels lie in the earth, and air, and sea!
What stores of knowledge wait our opening key!
What sunny roads of happiness lead out
Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt!
And what large pleasures smile upon and bless
The busy avenues of usefulness!
Life is a privilege. Thought the noontide fades
And shadows fall along the winding glades,
Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air,
Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there.
Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind,
And in the serious hours of life we find
Depths in the souls of men which lend new worth
And majesty to this brief span of earth.
Life is a privilege. If some sad fate
Sends us alone to seek the exit gate,
If men forsake us and as shadows fall,
Still does the supreme privilege of all
Come in that reaching upward of the soul
To find the welcoming Presence at the goal,
And in the Knowledge that our feet have trod
Paths that led from, and must wind back, to God.
Scheme | AABBCCDD XAEEFFXX GGHHIIJJ KKLLMMNN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101101 110100101001 11111100010 111101010010 11110010011 11010011011 0101110101 1100110011 110101111 0100101011 11010010101 111101101001 1101110011 01011101 0111010101 010101100 110101011 011010101 1111000101 1011110011 11011101101 000100101111 1001111111 0100111111 110101111 1101110101 110110111 110011011 1011010101 11010010101 00010110111 1111011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,368 |
Words | 256 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 271 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 1:16 min read
- 191 Views
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"Life Is A Privilege" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10682/life-is-a-privilege>.
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