Analysis of Beauty

Mathilde Blind 1841 (Mannheim) – 1896 (London)



Even as on some black background full of night
And hollow storm in cloudy disarray,
The forceful brush of some great master may
More brilliantly evoke a higher light;
So beautiful, so delicately white,
So like a very metaphor of May,
Your loveliness on my life's sombre grey
In its perfection stands out doubly bright.

And yet your beauty breeds a strange despair,
And pang of yearning in the helpless heart;
To shield you from time's fraying wear and tear,
That from yourself yourself would wrench apart,
How save you, fairest, but to set you where
Mortality kills death in deathless art?


Scheme ABBAABBA CDCDCD
Poetic Form Petrarchan sonnet 
Metre 1011111111 010101001 0101111101 1100010101 1100110001 1101010011 1111111 0101011101 0111010101 0111000101 1111110101 1101011101 1111011111 010011011
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 597
Words 104
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 237
Words per stanza (avg) 51
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 29, 2023

31 sec read
108

Mathilde Blind

Mathilde Blind, was a German-born British poet. Her work was praised by Matthew Arnold and French politician and historian Louis Blanc. more…

All Mathilde Blind poems | Mathilde Blind Books

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