Analysis of Greater Love
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen 1893 – 1918
Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings not so soft,--
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,--
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.
Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.
Scheme | AABBBA CCBBBA XDBBBD EEFFFE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111 1011110101 101101 111111 111111 1101110011 11010 111001111 100101 111111 101111 1101011 111111 11011100111 111111 100101 111111 111111111 110101 1111111111 011111 11111 111101 1111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 836 |
Words | 157 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 168 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 3 Views
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"Greater Love" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56947/greater-love>.
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