Analysis of Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
The sum is always plain.
Read on the mighty pall,
The weed of funeral
That covers praise and blame,
The -isms and the -anities,
Magnificence and shame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
The Fates are subtle girls!
They give us chaff for grain.
And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,
Like bolted death, disdain
At all that heart and brain
Conceive, or great or small,
Upon this earthly ball.
Would you be knight and dame?
Or woo the sweet humanities?
Or illustrate a name?
O Vanity of Vanities!
We sound the sea for pearls,
Or drown them in a drain;
We flute it with the merles,
Or tug and sweat and strain;
We grovel, or we reign;
We saunter, or we brawl;
We search the stars for Fame,
Or sink her subterranities;
The legend's still the same:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Here at the wine one birls,
There some one clanks a chain.
The flag that this man furls
That man to float is fain.
Pleasure gives place to pain:
These in the kennel crawl,
While others take the wall.
She has a glorious aim,
He lives for the inanities.
What come of every claim?
O Vanity of Vanities!
Alike are clods and earls.
For sot, and seer, and swain,
For emperors and for churls,
For antidote and bane,
There is but one refrain:
But one for king and thrall,
For David and for Saul,
For fleet of foot and lame,
For pieties and profanities,
The picture and the frame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Life is a smoke that curls--
Curls in a flickering skein,
That winds and whisks and whirls,
A figment thin and vain,
Into the vast Inane.
One end for hut and hall!
One end for cell and stall!
Burned in one common flame
Are wisdoms and insanities.
For this alone we came:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Envoy
Prince, pride must have a fall.
What is the worth of all
Your state's supreme urbanities?
Bad at the best's the game.
Well might the Sage exclaim:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Scheme | ababbxxcacD ababbeecdcD ababbecacD ababbeecacD ababbeecacD ababbeecacD xeeaccD |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111 010101 110111 110101 01111 110101 011100 110101 010001 101 11001100 011101 111111 01011 110101 111101 011111 011101 111101 11010100 11001 11001100 110111 111001 111101 110101 110111 110111 110111 1101 01101 11001100 110111 111101 011111 111111 101111 100101 110101 1101001 11101 1111001 11001100 011101 110101 1100011 11001 111101 111101 110011 111101 110001 010001 11001100 110111 1001001 110101 010101 010101 111101 111101 101101 1101 110111 11001100 10 111101 110111 11011 110101 110101 11001100 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,939 |
Words | 371 |
Sentences | 28 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 11, 10, 11, 11, 11, 7 |
Lines Amount | 72 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 211 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:50 min read
- 103 Views
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"Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40464/double-ballade-on-the-nothingness-of-things>.
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