Analysis of Living: After A Death
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)
O LIVE!
(Thus seems it we should say to our beloved,--
Each held by such slight links, so oft removed
And I can let thee go to the world's end,
All precious names, companion, love, spouse, friend,
Seal up in an eternal silence gray,
Like a closed grave till resurrection-day:
All sweet remembrances, hopes, dreams, desires,
Heap, as one heaps up sarificial fires:
Then, turning, consecrate by loss, and proud
Of penury--go back into the loud
Tumultuous world again with never a moan--
Save that which whispers still, 'My own, my own,'
Unto the same broad sky whose arch immense
Enfolds us both like the arm of Providence:
And thus, contended, I could live or die,
With never clasp of hand or meeting eye
On this side Paradise.--While thee I see
Living to God, thou art alive to me.
O live!
And I, methinks, can let all dear rights go,
Fond duties melt away like April snow,
And sweet, sweet hopes, that took a life to weave,
Vanish like gossamers of autumn eve.
Nay, sometimes seems it I could even bear
To lay down humbly this love-crown I wear,
Steal from my palace, helpless, hopeless, poor,
And see another queen it at the door,--
If only that the king had done no wrong,
If this my palace, where I dwelt so long,
Were not defiled by falsehood entering in:--
There is no loss but change, no death but sin,
No parting, save the slow corrupting pain
Of murdered faith that never lives again.
O live!
(So endeth faint the low pathetic cry
Of love, whom death has taught love cannot die,)
And I can stand above the daisy bed,
The only pillow for thy dearest head,
There cover up forever from my sight
My own, my earthly all of earth delight;
And enter the sea-cave of widowed years,
Where far, far off the trembling gleam appears
Through which thy heavenly image slipped away,
And waits to meet me at the open day.
Only to me, my love, only to me.
This cavern underneath the moaning sea;
This long, long life that I alone must tread,
To whom the living seem most like the dead,--
Thou wilt be safe out on the happy shore:
He who in God lives, liveth evermore.
Scheme | Axxbbccddeeffxxgghh Aiijjkkxlmmnnxx Aggooppqqcc hhooll |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11 11111111001 1111111101 0111111011 1101010111 1101010101 101110101 11010011010 11111110 110101101 1100110101 10010111001 1111011111 1001111101 1111011100 0101011111 1101111101 111101111 1011110111 11 011111111 1101011101 0111110111 10111101 1011111101 1111011111 1111010101 0101011101 1101011111 1111011111 011111000 1111111111 1101010101 1101110101 11 111010101 1111111101 0111010101 0101011101 1101010111 1111011101 0100111101 11110100101 11110010101 0111110101 1011111011 110010101 1111110111 1101011101 1111110101 11011110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,067 |
Words | 389 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 19, 15, 11, 6 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 396 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 95 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:56 min read
- 115 Views
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"Living: After A Death" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8029/living%3A-after-a-death>.
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