Analysis of Sonnet LXXXVIII: Hero's Lamp.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)
That lamp thou fill'st in Eros' name to-night,
O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take
To-morrow, and for drowned Leander's sake
To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight.
Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first light
On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break;
While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake,
Lo where Love walks, Death's pallid neophyte.
That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrine
Shall stand unlit (for so the gods decree)
Till some one man the happy issue see
Of a life's love, and bid its flame to shine:
Which still may rest unfir'd; for, theirs or thine,
O brother, what brought love to them or thee?
Scheme | ABBAABBACDDCCD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111010111 110101101 11001111 1111111 11001011111 11010111011 11111011 111111010 110111001 111110101 1111010101 1011011111 111111111 1101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 622 |
Words | 113 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 485 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 111 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
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"Sonnet LXXXVIII: Hero's Lamp." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7656/sonnet-lxxxviii%3A--hero%27s-lamp.>.
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