Analysis of Foundations
William Wilfred Campbell 1860 (Newmarket) – 1918 (Ottawa)
We are what nature made us; soon or late,
Life's art that fadeth passeth slow away,
With iron eatings of our sordid day,
Leaving behind those influences, innate,
Immutable, divine. As round some great,
Rude, craggy isle, the loud surf's ravening fray
Shatters all life in spume of thundered spray,
Leaving huge cliffs, scarred, grim, in naked state.
So life and all its idols hath its hour,
Its fleet, ephemeral dream, its passing show,
Its pomp of fevered hopes that come and go:
Then stripped of vanity and folly's power,
Like some wide water bared to moon and star,
We know ourselves in truth for what we are.
Scheme | ABBAABBA CDDCEE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Petrarchan sonnet |
Metre | 1111011111 11111101 1101110101 1001110001 0100011111 110101111 1011011101 1011110101 11011101110 11010011101 1111011101 1111000110 1111011101 11001011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 607 |
Words | 110 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 239 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 124 Views
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"Foundations" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42080/foundations>.
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