Analysis of 1866 -- Addressed To The Old Year
Henry Timrod 1828 (Charleston) – 1867 (Columbia)
Art thou not glad to close
Thy wearied eyes, O saddest child of Time,
Eyes which have looked on every mortal crime,
And swept the piteous round of mortal woes?
In dark Plutonian caves,
Beneath the lowest deep, go, hide thy head;
Or earth thee where the blood that thou hast shed
May trickle on thee from thy countless graves!
Take with thee all thy gloom
And guilt, and all our griefs, save what the breast,
Without a wrong to some dear shadowy guest,
May not surrender even to the tomb.
No tear shall weep thy fall,
When, as the midnight bell doth toll thy fate,
Another lifts the sceptre of thy state,
And sits a monarch in thine ancient hall.
HIM all the hours attend,
With a new hope like morning in their eyes;
Him the fair earth and him these radiant skies
Hail as their sovereign, welcome as their friend.
Him, too, the nations wait;
"O lead us from the shadow of the Past,"
In a long wail like this December blast,
They cry, and, crying, grow less desolate.
How he will shape his sway
They ask not -- for old doubts and fears will cling --
And yet they trust that, somehow, he will bring
A sweeter sunshine than thy mildest day.
Beneath his gentle hand
They hope to see no meadow, vale, or hill
Stained with a deeper red than roses spill,
When some too boisterous zephyr sweeps the land.
A time of peaceful prayer,
Of law, love, labor, honest loss and gain --
These are the visions of the coming reign
Now floating to them on this wintry air.
Scheme | XAAX BCCB DEED FGGF HIIH GJJX KLLK MNNM OPPO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (78%) |
Metre | 111111 1101110111 11111100101 010111101 0101001 0101011111 1111011111 1101111101 111111 01011011101 01011111001 1101010101 111111 110111111 0101010111 010101101 1101001 1011110011 10110111001 1111010111 110101 111101101 0011110101 1101011100 111111 1111110111 011111111 010111101 011101 111111111 1101011101 11110010101 011101 1111010101 1101010101 1101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,423 |
Words | 277 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 125 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:22 min read
- 112 Views
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"1866 -- Addressed To The Old Year" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18202/1866----addressed-to-the-old-year>.
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