Analysis of Patience Taught By Nature

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 (Kelloe) – 1861 (Florence)



'O DREARY life,' we cry, ' O dreary life ! '
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle ! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop year]y from the forest-trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these !--
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.


Scheme ABBAABBACDECDE
Poetic Form
Metre 1101111101 010010101 11101000101 01001111101 11011001101 0111110101 10110101 1111101 111110101 110101111 0111011111 1111011111 1111010111 1101010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 616
Words 115
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 483
Words per stanza (avg) 114
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

33 sec read
175

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era. more…

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