Analysis of Alone

Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield) – 1967 (Heytesbury)



I’ve listened: and all the sounds I heard
Were music,—wind, and stream, and bird.
With youth who sang from hill to hill
I’ve listened: my heart is hungry still.

I’ve looked: the morning world was green;
Bright roofs and towers of town I’ve seen;
And stars, wheeling through wingless night.
I’ve looked: and my soul yet longs for light.

I’ve thought: but in my sense survives
Only the impulse of those lives
That were my making. Hear me say
‘I’ve thought!’—and darkness hides my day.


Scheme AABB CCDD XXEE
Poetic Form Quatrain  (67%)
Metre 110010111 01010101 11111111 110111101 11010111 110101111 0110111 110111111 11101101 10010111 10110111 11010111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 510
Words 89
Sentences 8
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 123
Words per stanza (avg) 28
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

26 sec read
208

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an eminent English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy". more…

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