Analysis of Perfect Love

Archibald Lampman 1861 (Upper Canada) – 1899 (Ottawa, Canada)



Beloved, those who moan of love's brief day
Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,
Who know too well this passion's tenderness
To deem that it shall lightly pass away,
A moment's interlude in life's dull play;
Though many loves have lingered to distress,
So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,
But deepen with us till both heads be grey.

For perfect love is like a fair green plant,
That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,
And gentle lovers shall not come to want,
Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;
Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies,
But sweeter still the green that never dies.


Scheme ABXAABBA XXXXCC
Poetic Form
Metre 011111111 1111011111 111111100 1111110101 010100111 1101110101 111101101 1101111111 1011110111 1111110111 0101011111 1101111111 110101100101 1101011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 620
Words 115
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 245
Words per stanza (avg) 57
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
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Archibald Lampman

Archibald Lampman FRSC was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in English." Lampman is classed as one of Canada's Confederation Poets, a group which also includes Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. more…

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