Analysis of The Playing Infant
Friedrich Schiller 1759 (Marbach am Neckar) – 1805 (Weimar)
Play on thy mother's bosom, babe, for in that holy isle
The error cannot find thee yet, the grieving, nor the guile;
Held in thy mother's arms above life's dark and troubled wave,
Thou lookest with thy fearless smile upon the floating grave.
Play, loveliest innocence!--Thee yet Arcadia circles round,
A charmed power for thee has set the lists of fairy ground;
Each gleesome impulse Nature now can sanction and befriend,
Nor to that willing heart as yet the duty and the end.
Play, for the haggard labor soon will come to seize its prey.
Alas! when duty grows thy law, enjoyment fades away!
| Scheme | AABBCCDDEE |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 11110101101101 01010111010101 10110101110101 1111101010101 11100110100101 01101111011101 1110101110001 11110111010001 11010101111111 01110111010101 |
| Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
| Characters | 626 |
| Words | 107 |
| Sentences | 7 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 10 |
| Lines Amount | 10 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 47 |
| Words per line (avg) | 10 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 465 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 104 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
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"The Playing Infant" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/14417/the-playing-infant>.
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