Analysis of The One before the Last
Rupert Brooke 1887 (Rugby) – 1915 (Aegean Sea)
I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.
But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
Were Hell in Nineteen-five.
The boy’s woe was as keen and clear,
The boy’s love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
Hurt quite as much as you.
Sickly I pondered how the lover
Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
And sentimentalizes over
What earned a better doom.
Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,
Strews pinkish dust above,
And sighs, “The dear dead boyish pastime!
But this—ah, God!—is Love!”
—Better oblivion hide dead true loves,
Better the night enfold,
Than men, to eke the praise of new loves,
Should lie about the old!
Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty.
But here’s the worst of it—
I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty,
You ever hurt a bit!
Scheme | ABAB XCAC DEDE FGFG HIHI JKJK LMLM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101 1010101 01110101 1110011 111111111 011111 101011111 010111 01111101 011111 001010111 111111 101101010 1011 0110 110101 101101111 110101 01011101 111111 1001001111 100101 111101111 110101 110111010 110111 110101110 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 912 |
Words | 170 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 98 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 38 Views
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