Analysis of A Season in Hell
A Season in Hell
You can’t take the measure of a man
When things are going well:
You can only see what he’s made of
When he spends a season in hell…
We all want a life
Of prosperity, pleasure and ease,
Free of pain, grief and adversity:
But life is ornery and unpredictable,
Full of contrariness and perversity….
Trials and tribulations will arrive,
And heartache in their wake,
We all reach a point when we wonder
How much more can we take?
Life will pound and pummel you,
And knock you to the ground,
You’ll look for solace from friends,
But there is none to be found…
(The forge upon which men are shaped
By repeated hammer blows
Is the suffering we experience
As our trust in Jesus grows…)
…It is at just this moment
As you lie, dazed and bleeding,
You decide to put up one helluva fight:
It doesn’t matter where this is leading:
You commit to living like a man,
Or dying like one, if it must be,
For there are worse things than death,
Such as a life of shame and infamy.
Resolve that they can kill you,
If it’s in their power,
But they won’t frighten or stop you,
Or threaten you till you cower…
(The fire burns away the dross,
And purifies our souls,
The divine Blacksmith knows just
How much to fan the coals.)
Fight the battle with fierceness,
Never surrender your God-given being,
Nor concede an inch to the devil,
Stand firm while others are fleeing…
(You are the instrument of Truth
God has fashioned with precision:
Whether a sword or a ploughshare
Is entirely His decision.)
A man can only be judged once
He’s drained the dregs of life’s cup:
For it’s not how many times he falls,
But how many times he gets up.
Joseph L. Campanello © 2023
Scheme | A BAXA XCDED XFGF HIXI XJKJ XLXL BDXD HGHG XMXM CLEL XNXN KOXO A |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01001 111010101 111101 111011111 11101001 11101 101001001 111100100 11110000100 11100000100 100010101 01011 111011110 111111 1110101 011101 1111011 1111111 01011111 1010101 1010010100 11010101 1111110 1111010 111111101 111011110 101110101 110111111 1111111 1101110100 0111111 110110 11110111 11011110 01010101 01101 001111 111101 101011 10010111010 101111010 11110110 11010011 11101010 10011010 101001010 01110111 1101111 111110111 11101111 1011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,698 |
Words | 355 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 92 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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"A Season in Hell" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/176169/a-season-in-hell>.
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