Analysis of All Is Vanity, Saieth the Preacher
George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)
I.
Fame, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;
My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me;
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender:
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.
II.
I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.
There rose no day, there roll'd no hour
Of pleasure unembitter'd;
And not a trapping deck'd my power
That gall'd not while it glitter'd.
III.
The serpent of the field, by art
And spells, is won from harming;
But that which coils around the heart,
Oh! who hath pwer of charming?
It will not list to wisdom's lore,
Nor music's voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.
Scheme | ABCBCDEDE AFEFEEGEG AGHGHIGIG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 110101001 0101011 11111001 0101011 1111011 0111110 11111101 111101 1 111101011 0101010 11111101 1111110 111111110 1101 010101110 1111110 1 01010111 0111110 11110101 1111110 1111111 1101111 1111110 0111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 795 |
Words | 152 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 27 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 207 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 10, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 94 Views
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"All Is Vanity, Saieth the Preacher" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15033/all-is-vanity%2C-saieth-the-preacher>.
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