Analysis of Gloria in Profundis
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
There has fallen on earth for a token
A god too great for the sky.
He has burst out of all things and broken
The bounds of eternity:
Into time and the terminal land
He has strayed like a thief or a lover,
For the wine of the world brims over,
Its splendour is spilt on the sand.
Who is proud when the heavens are humble,
Who mounts if the mountains fall,
If the fixed stars topple and tumble
And a deluge of love drowns all-
Who rears up his head for a crown,
Who holds up his will for a warrant,
Who strives with the starry torrent,
When all that is good goes down?
For in dread of such falling and failing
The fallen angels fell
Inverted in insolence, scaling
The hanging mountain of hell:
But unmeasured of plummet and rod
Too deep for their sight to scan,
Outrushing the fall of man
Is the height of the fall of God.
Glory to God in the Lowest
The spout of the stars in spate-
Where thunderbolt thinks to be slowest
And the lightning fears to be late:
As men dive for sunken gem
Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,
The fallen star has found it
In the cavern of Bethlehem.
Scheme | AXAXBCCB DEDEFGGF HIHIJKKJ LMLMNOON |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110111010 0111101 1111111010 0110100 011001001 1111011010 101101110 1111101 1111010110 1110101 101110010 00101111 11111101 111111010 11101010 1111111 1011110010 010101 010010010 0101011 1111001 1111111 10111 10110111 10110010 0110101 11011110 00101111 1111101 01011011 0101111 0010110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,049 |
Words | 213 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 210 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 198 Views
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"Gloria in Profundis" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15976/gloria-in-profundis>.
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