Analysis of Twenty-One

John Le Gay Brereton 1871 (Sydney) – 1933



The world, all busy round us here of late,
Is still unchanged: but you are twenty-one.
The mind, victorious with the rising sun,
Steps boldly and blithely through the imagined gate
On greener grass where brighter flowers await
The quickened senses and the waters run
With livelier music, and a web is spun
Of loveliest pattern on the loom of fate.
Doubt nothing, fare right on with manly trust,
And know, whatever failures be in store,
Though all your light seem shimmering blinding haze,
And flowers and grass fly up in choking dust,
Better than you can fancy waits before
For those who find the secret of the maze.


Scheme ABBAABBACDECDE
Poetic Form
Metre 0111011111 1101111101 01010010101 110010100101 11011101001 0101000101 11001000111 111010111 1101111101 011010101 11111100101 01001110101 1011110101 1111010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 611
Words 111
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 492
Words per stanza (avg) 109
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
111

John Le Gay Brereton

John Le Gay Brereton was an Australian poet, critic and professor of English at the University of Sydney. He was the first president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers when it was formed in Sydney in 1928. more…

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