Analysis of The Pangs That Guard The Gates Of Joy

Christopher John Brennan 1870 (Haymarket, New South Wales) – 1932 (Lewisham, New South Wales)



THE PANGS that guard the gates of joy,  
the naked sword that will be kist,  
how distant seem’d they to the boy,  
white flashes in the rosy mist!  

Ah, not where tender play was screen’d          
in the light heart of leafy mirth  
of that obdurate might we ween’d  
that shakes the sure repose of earth.  

And sudden, ’twixt a sun and sun,  
the veil of dreaming is withdrawn:          
lo, our disrupt dominion  
and mountains solemn in the dawn;  

hard paths that chase the dayspring’s white,  
and glooms that hold the nether heat:  
oh, strange the world upheaved from night,          
oh, dread the life before our feet!


Scheme ABAB BCBC DEDE FGFG
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 01110111 01011111 11011101 11000101 11110111 00111101 11100111 11010111 01010101 01110101 11001010 01010001 1111011 01110101 1101111 110101101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 635
Words 108
Sentences 4
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 112
Words per stanza (avg) 27
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
86

Christopher John Brennan

Christopher John Brennan was an Australian poet, scholar and literary critic. more…

All Christopher John Brennan poems | Christopher John Brennan Books

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