Analysis of God

Gavril Romanovich Derzhavin 1743 (Kazan Governorate) – 1816 (Zvanka manor, Novgorod Governorate)



O Thou, who's infinite in space,
Alive in ever-moving matter,
Eternal in the flow of time,
God faceless, with a trinity of faces!
Soul unified and omnipresent,
Who needs no place or reason,
Whom none can ever comprehend,
Whose being permeates all things,
Encompassing, creating, guarding,
Thou, called by us God.

Although a great mind might contrive
To fix the ocean's depths,
To count the sands, the rays of stars,
Thou can't be summed or fixed!
Enlightened souls who have emerged
From your creative light
Cannot begin to grasp your ways:
Our thought alone aspires to thee,
But in your magnitude is lost,
A moment in eternity.

From depths eternal thou invoked
Primordial substances of chaos
Within thine very self thou birthed
Eternity before all time.
And before time from thine self alone
Thou shinest forth within thyself.
All light originates in thee.
Creating all with but a single word
And reaching forth in new creation,
Thou wast, thou art, and thou will ever be!

Thou incarnate the chain of life,
Thou nourish and sustain it.
Thou joinest starts with ends.
Thou bringest life to all through death.
New suns are born from thee
In flowing streams of sparks.
As on a clear and freezing day,
A hoarfrost dusting shines,
And floats, and churns and sparkles,
As do the stars beneath thy vault.

A multitude of shining spheres
Floats off into infinity.
They all fulfill thy laws,
And cast their vivifying rays.
But all these brilliant lanterns-
This mass of glowing crystal-
This roiling crowd of golden waves-
These burning elements-
Or all these gleaming worlds as one-
Compare to thee like night to day.

Compared to thee the earthly realm
Is like a droplet in the sea.
What is this universe I see?
And what am I, compared to thee?
If, in this airy sea, I wish
To multiply a million worlds
By other worlds a hundred times-
Then venture to compare the sum to thee,
All this would be a tiny speck;
So I, compared to thee, am naught.

I'm Naught! But thou shinest through me
With all the splendor of your virtue;
Thou showest yourself through me
Like sun inside a tiny water drop.
I'm Naught! But still I can feel life,
Like something hungering I fly,
I'm always soaring high above.
To be with you is my soul's wish,
It contemplates, reflects and thinks:
If I exist-thou art as well.

Thou art! As nature's order shows,
My heart affirms the same to me,
My reason's sure of it:
Tho art-And I'm no longer naught!
A fraction of the universe's whole,
It seems that I repose in nature's
Critical center where you started
With the creation of corporeal beasts,
And ended with the heav'nly spirits:
Through me, you fused the chain of life.

I am the link of all existing worlds,
I am the outer brink of matter,
I am the focal point of living things,
I am the starting place of the divine;
Although my flesh rots into ash,
My mind commands the thunderbolts,
I'm king-I'm slave - I'm worm-I'm God!
But though I am miraculous,
Whence did I come?-that no one knows.
I could not by myself have risen.

Creator, I am your invention!
I am a creature of your wisdom.
O, source of life, bestower of blessings,
My soul and king!
According to your iron laws
My self eternal must needs pass
Across the borne of death;
My spirit's clothed in mortal garb
And I return through death alone,-
To your eternity - O, father!-

Thou art inscrutable, transcendent!
I understand that all my soul's
Imaginings are powerless
Your shadow to describe;
But when thou must be glorified
To pay such tribute we frail men
One course alone can follow.
We venture upwards to thy realm,
To lose ourselves in thy vast otherness
And shed our tears of gratitude.


Scheme ABCXDEXFGH IXXXXXJKXK XXDCLIKXEK MNXOKXPXXX XKQJXXXXEP RKKKSTXKXU KXKXMXXSXX VKNUXXXXXM TBFXXAHWVE EXFGQXOXLB DAWXXXXRWX
Poetic Form Etheree  (28%)
Metre 11110001 010101010 01000111 11010100110 1100010 1111110 1111001 1101011 010001010 11111 1011101 110101 11010111 111111 01011101 110101 10011111 1010101011 1011011 01000100 11010101 0100100110 01110111 01000111 001111101 111011 1101001 0101110101 010101010 1111011101 10100111 1100011 11111 1111111 111111 010111 11010101 01101 0101010 11010111 0101101 11010100 110111 01111 1111010 1111010 11011101 110100 11110111 01111111 01110101 11010001 1111011 01110111 10110111 1100101 11010101 1101010111 11110101 11011111 1111111 110101110 110111 1101010101 11111111 11010011 1110101 11111111 1100101 11011111 11110101 11010111 11111 11011101 0101011 111101010 100101110 10010111 01010110 11110111 1101110101 110101110 1101011101 1101011001 1111011 110101 11111111 11110100 11111111 11111110 010111010 110101110 11111110 1101 01011101 11010111 010111 11010101 01011101 110100110 110100010 1011111 11100 11101 1111110 11110111 1101110 11010111 11001011100 01101110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 3,517
Words 650
Sentences 40
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10
Lines Amount 110
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 257
Words per stanza (avg) 59
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:20 min read
161

Gavril Romanovich Derzhavin

Gavriil (Gavrila) Romanovich Derzhavin (Russian: Гаврии́л (Гаври́ла) Рома́нович Держа́вин) was one of the most highly esteemed Russian poets before Alexander Pushkin, as well as a statesman. Although his works are traditionally considered literary classicism, his best verse is rich with antitheses and conflicting sounds in a way reminiscent of John Donne and other metaphysical poets. more…

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