Analysis of A Footnote to a Famous Lyric
Louise Imogen Guiney 1861 (Roxbury) – 1920
TRUE love’s own talisman, which here
Shakespeare and Sidney failed to teach,
A steel-and-velvet Cavalier
Gave to our Saxon speech:
Chief miracle of theme and touch
That upstart enviers adore:
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.
No critic born since Charles was king
But sighed in smiling, as he read:
“Here ’s theft of the supremest thing
A poet might have said!”
Young knight and wit and beau, who won,
Mid war’s adventure, ladies’ praise,
Was ’t well of you, ere you had done,
To blight our modern bays?
O yet to you, whose random hand
Struck from the dark whole gems like these,
Archaic beauty, never planned
Nor reared by wan degrees,
Which leaves an artist poor, and art
An earldom richer all her years;
To you, dead on your shield apart,
Be “Ave!” passed in tears.
How shall this singing era spurn
Her master, and in lauds be loath?
Your worth, your work, bid us discern
Light exquisite in both.
’T was virtue’s breath inflamed your lyre,
Heroic from the heart it ran;
Nor for the shedding of such fire
Lives since a manlier man.
And till your strophe sweet and bold
So lovely aye, so lonely long,
Love’s self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold
The pinnacles of song.
Scheme | XAXA BCBC DEDE FGFG HIHI JXJX KLKL XMXM NONO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (89%) |
Metre | 11110011 1010111 0101001 1110101 11001101 11101 11111111 11111 11011111 11010111 1111011 010111 11010111 11010101 111111111 1110101 11111101 11011111 01010101 111101 11110101 11010101 11111101 11101 11110101 01000111 11111101 110001 111010111 01010111 110101110 11011 0111101 11011101 111111 0111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,196 |
Words | 221 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 102 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 23, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 30 Views
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"A Footnote to a Famous Lyric" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/26152/a-footnote-to-a-famous-lyric>.
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