Analysis of Three Extracts from the Diary of a Week
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)
THREE EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A WEEK.
A record of the inward world, whose facts
Are thoughts— and feelings— fears, and hopes, and dreams.
There are some days that might outmeasure years
Days that obliterate the past, and make
The future of the colour which they cast.
A day may be a destiny ; for life
Lives in but little— but that little teems
With some one chance, the balance of all time :
A look— a word— and we are wholly changed.
We marvel at ourselves — we would deny
That which is working in the hidden soul ;
But the heart knows and trembles at the truth :
On such these records linger.
WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN!
We might have been !— these are but common words,
And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing;
They are the echo of those finer chords,
Whose music life deplores when unavailing.
_ We might have been !
We might have been so happy ! says the child,
Pent in the weary school-room during summer,
When the green rushes 'mid the marshes wild,
And rosy fruits, attend the radiant comer.
_ We might have been !
It is the thought that darkens on our youth,
When first experience — sad experience — teaches
What fallacies we have believed for truth,
And what few truths endeavour ever reaches.
_ We might have been !
Alas ! how different from what we are
Had we but known the bitter path before us ;
But feelings, hopes, and fancies left afar,
What in the wide bleak world can e'er restore us ?
_ We might have been !
It is the motto of all human things,
The end of all that waits on mortal seeking ;
The weary weight upon Hope's flagging wings,
It is the cry of the worn heart while breaking.
_ We might have been !
And when, warm with the heaven that gave it birth,
Dawns on our world-worn way Love's hour Elysian,
The last fair angel lingering on our earth,
The shadow of what thought obscures the vision.
_ We might have been !
A cold fatality attends on love,
Too soon or else too late the heart-beat quickens ;
The star which is our fate springs up above,
And we but say — while round the vapour thickens —
_ We might have been !
Life knoweth no like misery ; the rest
Are single sorrows, — but in this are blended
All sweet emotions that disturb the breast ;
The light that was our loveliest is ended.
_ We might have been !
Henceforth, how much of the full heart must be
A seal’d book at whose contents we tremble ?
A still voice mutters 'mid our misery,
The worst to hear, because it must dissemble —
_ We might have been !
Life is made up of miserable hours,
And all of which we craved a brief possessing,
For which we wasted wishes, hopes, and powers,
Comes with some fatal drawback on the blessing.
_ We might have been !
The future never renders to the past
The young beliefs intrusted to its keeping ;
Inscribe one sentence — life's first truth and last —
On the pale marble where our dust is sleeping —
_ We might have been.
In the ancestral presence of the dead
Sits a lone power — a veil upon the head,
Stern with the terror of an unseen dread.
It sitteth cold, immutable, and still,
Girt with eternal consciousness of ill,
And strong and silent as its own dark will.
We are the victims of its iron rule,
The warm and beating human heart its tool ;
And man, immortal, godlike, but its fool.
We know not of its presence, though its power
Be on the gradual round of every hour,
Now flinging down an empire, now a flower.
And all things small and careless are its own,
Unwittingly the seed minute is sown, —
The tree of evil out of it is grown.
At times we see and struggle with our chain,
And dream that somewhat we are freed, in vain ;
The mighty fetters close on us again.
We mock our actual strength with lofty thought,
And towers that look into the heavens are wrought, -
But after all our toil the task is nought.
Down comes the stately fabric, and the sands
Are scatter'd with the work of myriad hands,
High o'er whose pride the fragile wild-flower stands.
Such are the wrecks of nations and of kings,
Far in the desert, where the palm-tree springs ;
'Tis the same story in all meaner things.
The heart builds up its hopes, though not addrest
To meet the sunset glories of the west,
But garnered in some still, sweet-singing nest.
But the dark power is on its noiseless way,
The song is silent so sweet yesterday,
And not a green leaf lingers on the spray.
We mock ourselves with freedom, and with hope,
The while our feet glide down life's faithless slope ;
One has no strength, the other has no scope.
So we are flung on Time's tumultuous wave,
Forced there to struggle, but denied to save,
Till the stern tide ebbs — and there is the grave.
I do not say bequeath unto my soul
Thy memory, — I rather ask forgetting ;
Withdraw, I pray, from me thy strong control,
Leave something in the wide world worth regretting.
I need my thoughts for other things than thee,
I dare not let thine image fill them only ;
The hurried happiness it wakes in me
Will leave the hours that are to come more lonely.
I live not like the many of my kind,
Mine is a world of feelings and of fancies,
Fancies whose rainbow empire is the mind,
Feelings that realise their own romances.
To dream and to create has been my fate,
Alone, apart from life's more busy scheming ;
I fear to think that I may find too late
Vain was the toil, and idle was the dreaming.
Have I uprear'd my glorious pyre of thought,
Up to the heavens, but for my own entombing ?
The fair and fragrant things that years have brought
Must they be gathered for my own consuming?
Oh ! give me back the past that took no part
In the existence it was but surveying ;
That knew not then of the awaken'd heart
Amid the life of other lives decaying.
Why should such be mine own ? I sought it not :
More than content to live apart and lonely,
The feverish tumult of a loving lot,
Is what I wish'd, and thought to picture only.
Surely the spirit is its own free will ;
What should o'ermaster mine to vain complying
With hopes that call down what they bring of ill,
With fears to their own questioning replying ?
In vain, in vain ! Fate is above us all ;
We struggle, but what matters our endeavour ?
Our doom is gone beyond our own recall,
May we deny or mitigate it ? — never !
And what art thou to me, — thou who dost wake
The mind's still depths with trouble and repining ?
Nothing; — though all things now thy likeness take ;
Nothing, — and life has nothing worth resigning.
Ah, yes ! one thing, thy memory ; though grief
Watching the expiring beam of hope's last ember,
Life had one hour, — bright, beautiful, and brief,
And now its only task is to remember.
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110100101 0011010111 1101010101 11111111 110100101 010101111 0111010011 1011011101 1111010111 0101011101 11010011101 1111000101 101101101 1110110 1111 1111111101 011101111 1101011101 1101011010 11111 1111110101 10010111010 1011010101 010101010010 11111 1101111101 1101001010010 1100110111 01110101010 11111 0111001111 11110101011 1101010101 100111110011 11111 1101011101 01111111010 0101011101 11011011110 11111 01110101111 11101111101 011101001101 0111101010 11111 0101000111 11111101110 01111011101 0111110110 11111 111110001 11010101110 1101010101 0111101110 11111 1111101111 0111110110 01110110100 01110111010 11111 11111100010 01111101010 11110101010 1111011010 11111 0101010101 010111110 0111011101 101101101110 11111 0001010101 10110010101 1101011011 111010001 1101010011 0101011111 1101011101 0101010111 010101111 11111101110 1101001110010 110111001010 0111010111 0100011011 0111011111 11110101101 0111111101 0101011101 111010011101 010110101011 11011010111 1101010001 11010111001 110110101101 1101110011 1001010111 1011001101 011111111 110110101 1100111101 1011011111 011101110 0101110101 11001110011 0110111111 1111010111 1111111001 1111010111 1011101101 1111011011 11001101010 0111111101 11000111010 1111110111 11111101110 0101001101 110101111110 1111010111 11011100110 1011100101 101111010 1101011111 01011111010 1111111111 11010101010 11111001011 1101011111 0101011111 11110111010 1111011111 00010111010 1111100101 01011101010 1111111111 11101101010 01001010101 11110111010 1001011111 111111010 1111111111 11111100010 0101110111 110111010010 10111011011 1101110110 0111111111 011111001 1011111101 10011101010 1111110011 100010111110 11110110001 01110111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 6,627 |
Words | 1,221 |
Sentences | 63 |
Stanzas | 38 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 13, 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 153 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 132 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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"Three Extracts from the Diary of a Week" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/44795/three-extracts-from-the-diary-of-a-week>.
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