Analysis of As You Came from the Holy Land
Sir Walter Raleigh 1552 (Hayes Barton, East Budleigh, Devon) – 1618 (London)
As you came from the holy land
Of Walsingham,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
'How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one,
I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?'
She is neither white, nor brown,
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth, or the air.
'Such a one did I meet, good sir,
Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear
By her gait, by her grace.'
She hath left me here all alone,
All alone, as unknown,
Who sometimes did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own.
'What's the cause that she leaves you alone,
And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own,
And her joy did you make?'
I have lov'd her all my youth;
But now old, as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree.
Know that Love is a careless child,
And forgets promise past;
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.
His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy:
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy.
Of womenkind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abus'd,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excus'd.
But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.
Scheme | ABCBCDAEFGHGIJKJLLMLLNLNOPQPRSTSUVGVCWXWIYZY |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101 11 1111111 101111 1111111 111101 1110101 111111 1110111 110101 111101101 001101 10111111 11101 1101101101 101101 11111101 101101 101111101 011101 101111101 001111 1111101 001111 1110111 111111 1110101 10101 11110101 001101 111111111 001101 101010110 0011 111101101 011101 11101101 101101 1011010010 01101 1111010010 0011010 101101101 1011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,272 |
Words | 269 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 44 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 984 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 264 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 137 Views
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"As You Came from the Holy Land" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35437/as-you-came-from-the-holy-land>.
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