Analysis of Written Soon After The Preceding Poem
Charles Lamb 1775 (Inner Temple, London) – 1834 (Edmonton, London)
Thou should'st have longer liv'd, and to the grave
Have peacefully gone down in full old age!
Thy children would have tended thy gray hairs.
We might have sat, as we have often done,
By our fireside, and talk'd whole nights away,
Old times, old friends, and old events recalling;
With many a circumstance, of trivial note,
To memory dear, and of importance grown.
How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?
A wayward son ofttimes was I to thee;
And yet, in all our little bickerings,
Domestic jars, there was, I know not what,
Of tender feeling, that were ill exchang'd
For this world's chilling friendships, and their smiles
Familiar, whom the heart calls strangers still.
A heavy lot hath he, most wretched man!
Who lives the last of all his family.
He looks around him, and his eye discerns
The face of the stranger, and his heart is sick.
Man of the world, what canst thou do for him?
Wealth is a burden, which he could not bear;
Mirth a strange crime, the which he dares not act;
And wine no cordial, but a bitter cup.
For wounds like his Christ is the only cure,
And gospel promises are his by right,
For these were given to the poor in heart.
Go, preach thou to him of a world to come,
Where friends shall meet, and know each other's face.
Say less than this, and say it to the winds.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJCKLMNOJPQRSTUVWXYZ1 |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111010101 1100110111 1101110111 1111111101 11010011101 11110101010 11001011001 11001010101 1111100101 010111111 010110101 0101111111 1101010101 1111010011 0101011101 0101111101 1101111100 1101101101 01101001111 1101111111 1101011111 1011011111 0111010101 1111110101 0101001111 1101010101 1111110111 1111011101 1111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,285 |
Words | 247 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 29 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 995 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 243 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:16 min read
- 66 Views
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"Written Soon After The Preceding Poem" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5441/written-soon-after-the-preceding-poem>.
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