Analysis of The Gift of Perseverance
John Henry Newman 1801 (London) – 1890 (Edgbaston)
ONCE, as I brooded o'er my guilty state,
A fever seized me, duties to devise,
To buy me interest in my Saviour's eyes;
Not that His love I would extenuate,
But scourge and penance, masterful self-hate,
Or gift of cost, served by an artifice
To quell my restless thoughts and envious sighs
And doubts, which fain heaven's peace would antedate.
Thus as I tossed, He said:—'E'en holiest deeds
Shroud not the soul from God, nor soothe its needs;
Deny thee thine own fears, and wait the end!'
Stern lesson! Let me con it day by day,
And learn to kneel before the Omniscient Ray,
Nor shrink, when Truth's avenging shafts descend!
Scheme | ABBAACBADDEFFE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101101 0101110101 111100111 111111010 1101010011 1111111100 11110101001 011110111 11111111001 1101111111 0111110101 1101111111 01110100101 1111010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 647 |
Words | 115 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 482 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 111 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 17, 2023
- 36 sec read
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"The Gift of Perseverance" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23315/the-gift-of-perseverance>.
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