Analysis of A Spirit Passed Before Me [From Job]

George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)



A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled--
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine--
And there it stood,--all formless--but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:

'Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay--vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!'


Scheme AABBCC XXAAAA
Poetic Form
Metre 010101111 011010001 11111100111 011111101 0111010111 0111110111 1111111111 1111101100 1011110001 0101101111 1101110101 10111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 518
Words 97
Sentences 7
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 6
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 201
Words per stanza (avg) 47
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
127

George Gordon Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet, peer and politician who became a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence, and is considered one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest English poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular. He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years in the cities of Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa. During his stay in Italy he frequently visited his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire and died of disease leading a campaign during that war, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted after the First and Second Siege of Missolonghi. His only legitimate child, Ada Lovelace, is regarded as a foundational figure in the field of computer programming based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Byron's illegitimate children include Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh.  more…

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