Analysis of Retrospection
William Lisle Bowles 1762 (King's Sutton) – 1850
I turn these leaves with thronging thoughts, and say,
Alas! how many friends of youth are dead;
How many visions of fair hope have fled,
Since first, my Muse, we met.--So speeds away
Life, and its shadows; yet we sit and sing,
Stretched in the noontide bower, as if the day
Declined not, and we yet might trill our lay
Beneath the pleasant morning's purple wing
That fans us; while aloft the gay clouds shine!
Oh, ere the coming of the long cold night,
Religion, may we bless thy purer light,
That still shall warm us, when the tints decline
O'er earth's dim hemisphere; and sad we gaze
On the vain visions of our passing days!
Scheme | ABBACAACDEEDFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111101 0111011111 1101011111 1111111101 101111101 1001101101 01101111101 0101010101 1111010111 1101010111 0101111101 1111110101 1011100111 10110110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 622 |
Words | 119 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 485 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 116 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 72 Views
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"Retrospection" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40922/retrospection>.
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