Analysis of Hymn to Love

Lascelles Abercrombie 1881 (Ashton upon Mersey) – 1938 (London)



We are thine, O Love, being in thee and made of thee,
     As théou, Léove, were the déep thought
And we the speech of the thought; yea, spoken are we,
          Thy fires of thought out-spoken:

But burn’d not through us thy imagining
     Like fiérce méood in a séong céaught,
We were as clamour’d words a fool may fling,
          Loose words, of meaning broken.

For what more like the brainless speech of a fool,—
     The lives travelling dark fears,
And as a boy throws pebbles in a pool
          Thrown down abysmal places?

Hazardous are the stars, yet is our birth
     And our journeying time theirs;
As words of air, life makes of starry earth
          Sweet soul-delighted faces;

As voices are we in the worldly wind;
     The great wind of the world’s fate
Is turn’d, as air to a shapen sound, to mind
          And marvellous desires.

But not in the world as voices storm-shatter’d,
     Not borne down by the wind’s weight;
The rushing time rings with our splendid word
          Like darkness fill’d with fires.

For Love doth use us for a sound of song,
     And Love’s meaning our life wields,
Making our souls like syllables to throng
          His tunes of exultation.

Down the blind speed of a fatal world we fly,
     As rain blown along earth’s fields;
Yet are we god-desiring liturgy,
         Sung joys of adoration;

Yea, made of chance and all a labouring strife,
     We go charged with a strong flame;
For as a language Love hath seized on life
          His burning heart to story.

Yea, Love, we are thine, the liturgy of thee,
     Thy thought’s golden and glad name,
The mortal conscience of immortal glee,
          Love’s zeal in Love’s own glory.


Scheme ABAC DBDC EXEF GXGF HIHJ BIXJ KLKC XLAC MNMA ANAA
Poetic Form Etheree  (20%)
Metre 1111110010111 11111100111 010110111011 11011110 1111110100 11111001111 101110111 1111010 11110101101 0110011 0101110001 1101010 10010111101 01010011 1111111101 1101010 1101100101 0111011 1111101111 01010 1100111011 1111011 01011110101 1101110 1111110111 01101011 10101110011 1111 10111010111 1110111 11110100100 111010 111101011 1111011 1101011111 1101110 11111010011 1110011 0101010101 1101110
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,690
Words 284
Sentences 8
Stanzas 10
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 40
Letters per line (avg) 30
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 118
Words per stanza (avg) 28
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:25 min read
83

Lascelles Abercrombie

Lascelles Abercrombie was a British poet and literary critic, one of the "Dymock poets". more…

All Lascelles Abercrombie poems | Lascelles Abercrombie Books

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