Analysis of Stanzas For Music: There's Not A Joy The World Can Give
George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)
There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.
Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.
Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath—
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.
Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.
Scheme | AABB XXXX XXXX CCDD XXEE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (40%) |
Metre | 11010111111101 10111010101101 11111101011111 101011111110111 101110101011100 11010011111011 01011111110101 01111101110101 101010101110111 11011101111111 1101110100101101 01011101110101 11111101010101 11101111110111 11110101010101 11010101110101 11111111111111 1111111110100101 11010111110111 11010111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,265 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 50 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 199 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 202 Views
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"Stanzas For Music: There's Not A Joy The World Can Give" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15202/stanzas-for-music%3A-there%27s-not-a-joy-the-world-can-give>.
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