Analysis of Things to Come
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)
When you have gone and I have gone
Beyond the ken of earthly things,
Yet watch the old race carry on
As to precarious life it clings,
Gazing together from afar,
Perched on some fixed or unfixed star,
We may find cause to meditate
Full thankfully upon our fate.
And you shall say - or I shall say:
Those were man's great days, yours and mine,
Before his glories passed away,
His kingship fell into decline,
When he walked proudly o'er the earth
Questing his joy at its broad girth
Ere fear and folly claimed his soul
And bade him emulate the mole.
And you shall gaze and I shall gaze
In pity from our distant star
And witness, thro' the cosmic haze
Earth's bosom scored by many a scar
Where in and out, in furtive haste
Strange, pallid little creatures raced,
Short-limbed, large-pawed, with small weak eyes
That feared to look up to the skies.
We'll watch the timid little gnomes,
So altered now in shape from us,
Peer from their subterranean homes
Half vengefully, half curious;
Then, at the barking of a gun,
Back to their holes we'll watch them run.
And I shall say - or you shall say:
'These were earth's masters in our day.'
Scheme | XAXABBCC DEDEFFGG HBHBIIJJ KLKLMMDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110111 01011101 11011101 110100111 10010101 1111111 1111110 110001101 01111111 10111101 01110101 11010101 111101001 1111111 11010111 0111001 01110111 010110101 01010101 110111001 10010101 11010101 11111111 11111101 11010101 11010111 111001001 111100 11010101 11111111 01111111 101100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,106 |
Words | 212 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 220 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 52 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 104 Views
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"Things to Come" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6791/things-to-come>.
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