Analysis of Over The Eyes Of Gladness

James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)



'The voice of One hath spoken,
And the bended reed is bruised--
The golden bowl is broken,
And the silver cord is loosed.'

Over the eyes of gladness
The lids of sorrow fall,
And the light of mirth is darkened
Under the funeral pall.

The hearts that throbbed with rapture
In dreams of the future years,
Are wakened from their slumbers,
And their visions drowned in tears.

. . . . . . .
Two buds on the bough in the morning--
Twin buds in the smiling sun,
But the frost of death has fallen
And blighted the bloom of one.

One leaf of life still folded
Has fallen from the stem,
Leaving the symbol teaching
There still are two of them,--

For though--through Time's gradations,
The LIVING bud may burst,--
The WITHERED one is gathered,
And blooms in Heaven first.


Scheme AXAX BXXX XBBB CAAA XDCD BEXE
Poetic Form
Metre 0111110 0010111 0101110 0010111 100111 011101 00111110 1001001 0111110 0110101 11111 0110101 1 111010010 1100101 10111110 0100111 1111110 110101 1001010 111111 1111010 010111 0101110 010101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 742
Words 139
Sentences 13
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 97
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

41 sec read
98

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. more…

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