Analysis of The Burning Babe
Robert Southwell 1561 (Horsham St Faith) – 1595
AS I in hoary winter's night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat
Which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye
To view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright
Did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat,
Such floods of tears did shed,
As though His floods should quench His flames,
Which with His tears were bred:
'Alas!' quoth He, 'but newly born
In fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts
Or feel my fire but I!
'My faultless breast the furnace is;
The fuel, wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke;
The ashes, shames and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on,
And Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought
Are men's defiled souls:
For which, as now on fire I am
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath,
To wash them in my blood.'
With this He vanish'd out of sight
And swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind
That it was Christmas Day.
Scheme | ABCBDEAECFGFHDIDJKLKMNONPQRSATUT |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101 1100001 01111101 111111 01010101 1111011 01011101 100101 1110101 111111 11111111 111101 01111101 0100111 11011111 1111011 1110101 010101 110100101 010101 0101011 010101 01001101 1111 111111011 111111 11110101 111011 11110111 010101 0111101 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,031 |
Words | 191 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 32 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 752 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 187 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 168 Views
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