Analysis of The Fountain Leaps as if its Nearest Goal
Helen Hunt Jackson 1830 (Amherst, Massachusetts) – 1885 (San Francisco)
The fountain leaps as if its nearest goal
Were sky, and shines as if its life were light.
No crystal prism flashes on our sight
Such radiant splendor of the rainbow's whole
Of color. Who would dream the fountain stole
Its tints, and if the sun no more were bright
Would instant fade to its own pallid white?
Who dream that never higher than the dole
Of its own source, its stream may rise?
Thus we
See often hearts of men that by love's glow
Are sudden lighted, lifted till they show
All semblances of true nobility;
The passion spent, they tire of purity,
And sink again to their own levels low!
Scheme | ABBAABBACDEEDDE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (27%) |
Metre | 0101111101 0101111101 11010101101 1100101011 1101110101 1101011101 1101111101 1111010101 11111111 11 1101111111 1101010111 11110100 01011101100 0101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 590 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 15 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 471 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 112 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 107 Views
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"The Fountain Leaps as if its Nearest Goal" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/17086/the-fountain-leaps-as-if-its-nearest-goal>.
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