A Shadow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
I said unto myself, if I were dead,
What would befall these children? What would be
Their fate, who now are looking up to me
For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
But the first chapters, and no longer see
To read the rest of their dear history,
So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
And generations pass, as they have passed,
A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
The world belongs to those who come the last,
They will find hope and strength as we have done.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 233 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABBAABBACDECDE |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 589 |
Words | 118 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
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"A Shadow" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/18494/a-shadow>.
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