Analysis of Despair

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)



I have experienc'd
The worst, the World can wreak on me--the worst
That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb
With whisper'd Discontents the dying prayer--
I have beheld the whole of all, wherein
My Heart had any interest in this Life,
To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes
That nothing now is left. Why then live on ?
That Hostage, which the world had in it's keeping
Given by me as a Pledge that I would live--
That Hope of Her, say rather, that pure Faith
In her fix'd Love, which held me to keep truce
With the Tyranny of Life--is gone ah ! whither ?
What boots it to reply ? 'tis gone ! and now
Well may I break this Pact, this League of Blood
That ties me to myself--and break I shall !


Scheme ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
Poetic Form
Metre 110100 0101111101 1111010101 110010101 111011101 1111010011 111011111 1101111111 11010110110 10111011111 1110110111 0011111111 101001111110 1111011101 1111111111 111110111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 689
Words 134
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 528
Words per stanza (avg) 138
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

41 sec read
175

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. more…

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