Analysis of The Gifts of God

Jones Very 1813 (Salem) – 1880



THE LIGHT that fills thy house at morn,
Thou canst not for thyself retain;
But all who with thee here are born,
It bids to share an equal gain.

The wind that blows thy ship along,
Her swelling sails cannot confine;
Alike to all the gales belong,
Nor canst thou claim a breath as thine.

The earth, the green out-spreading earth,
Why hast thou fenced it off from me?
Hadst thou than I a nobler birth,
Who callest thine a gift so free?

The wave, the blue encircling wave,
No chains can bind, no fetters hold;
Its thunders tell of Him who gave
What none can ever buy for gold.


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH
Poetic Form Traditional rhyme
Quatrain 
Metre 01111111 1111101 11111111 11111101 01111101 01011001 01110101 11110111 01011101 11111111 11110101 1110111 010101001 11111101 11011111 11110111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 568
Words 112
Sentences 6
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 111
Words per stanza (avg) 28
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
84

Jones Very

Jones Very was an American poet, essayist, clergymen, and mystic associated with the American Transcendentalism movement. more…

All Jones Very poems | Jones Very Books

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