Analysis of Day By Day

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)



EVERY day has its dawn,
Its soft and silent eve,
Its noontide hours of bliss or bale;--
Why should we grieve?

Why do we heap huge mounds of years
Before us and behind,
And scorn the little days that pass
Like angels on the wind?

Each turning round a small sweet face
As beautiful as near;
Because it is so small a face
We will not see it clear:

We will not clasp it as it flies,
And kiss its lips and brow:
We will not bathe our wearied souls
In its delicious Now.

And so it turns from us, and goes
Away in sad disdain:
Though we would give our lives for it,
It never comes again.

Yet, every day has its dawn,
Its noontide and its eve:
Live while we live, giving God thanks--
He will not let us grieve.


Scheme ABXB XCXC DEDE XFXF XXXX ABXB
Poetic Form Quatrain  (83%)
Metre 1001111 110101 11101111 1111 11111111 011001 01010111 110101 11010111 110011 01111101 111111 11111111 011101 111110101 010101 01111101 010101 111110111 110101 11001111 11011 11111011 111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 710
Words 145
Sentences 6
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 90
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 30, 2023

43 sec read
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Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Dinah Maria Craik (; born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) was an English novelist and poet. She is best remembered for her novel John Halifax, Gentleman, which presents the mid-Victorian ideals of English middle-class life.  more…

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