Analysis of On Delia (Bid Adieu, My Sad Heart)

William Cowper 1731 (Berkhamsted) – 1800 (Dereham)



Bid adieu, my sad heart, bid adieu to thy peace!
Thy pleasure is past, and thy sorrows increase;
See the shadows of evening how far they extend,
And a long night is coming, that never may end;
For the sun is now set that enlivened the scene,
And an age must be past ere it rises again.

Already deprived of its splendour and heat,
I feel thee more slowly, more heavily beat;
Perhaps overstrained with the quick pulse of pleasure,
Thou art glad of this respite to beat at thy leisure;
But the sigh of distress shall now weary thee more
Than the flutter and tumult of passion before.

The heart of a lover is never at rest,
With joy overwhelmed, or with sorrow oppressed:
When Delia is near, all is ecstasy then,
And I even forget I must lose her again:
When absent, as wretched as happy before,
Despairing I cry, I shall see her no more!


Scheme AABBXC DDEEFF GGCCFF
Poetic Form
Metre 101111101111 11011011001 10111011101 001111011011 101111101001 011111111001 0100111101 11111011001 0111011110 1111110111110 101101111011 101001011001 01101011011 1101111001 11011111001 011001111001 11011011001 01011111011
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 825
Words 160
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 217
Words per stanza (avg) 53
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
49

William Cowper

William Macquarie Cowper was an Australian Anglican archdeacon and Dean of Sydney. more…

All William Cowper poems | William Cowper Books

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