Analysis of Stanzas For Music: They Say That Hope Is Happiness

George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)



They say that Hope is happiness;
But genuine Love must prize the past,
And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless:
They rose the first--they set the last;

And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.

Alas it is delusion all:
The future cheats us from afar,
Nor can we be what we recall,
Nor dare we think on what we are.


Scheme XAXA XBXB CDCD
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 11111100 110011101 010010111 11011101 011100101 111010111 01110101 11001100 01110101 01011101 1111111 11111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 404
Words 80
Sentences 3
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 103
Words per stanza (avg) 26
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 07, 2023

24 sec read
221

George Gordon Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet, peer and politician who became a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence, and is considered one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest English poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular. He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years in the cities of Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa. During his stay in Italy he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died of disease leading a campaign during that war, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted after the First and Second Siege of Missolonghi. His only legitimate child, Ada Lovelace, is regarded as a foundational figure in the field of computer programming based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Byron's illegitimate children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh.  more…

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