Analysis of The Pastor's Reverie
Washington Gladden 1836 ( Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, ) – 1918 ( Columbus, Ohio, )
The pastor sits in his easy-chair,
With the Bible upon his knee.
From gold to purple the clouds in the west
Are changing momently;
The shadows lie in the valleys below,
And hide in the curtain's fold;
And the page grows dim whereon he reads,
"I remember the days of old."
"Not clear nor dark," as the Scripture saith,
The pastor's memories are;
No day that is gone was shadowless,
No night was without its star;
But mingled bitter and sweet hath been
The portion of his cup:
"The hand that in love hath smitten," he saith,
"In love hath bound us up."
Fleet flies his thoughts over many a field
Of stubble and snow and bloom,
And now it trips through a festival,
And now it halts at a tomb;
Young faces smile in his reverie,
Of those that are young no more,
And voices are heard that only come
With the winds from a far-off shore.
He thinks of the day when first, with fear
And faltering lips, he stood
To speak in the sacred place the Word
To the waiting multitude;
He walks again to the house of God
With the voice of joy and praise,
With many whose feet long time have pressed
Heaven's safe and blessed ways.
He enters again the homes of toil,
And joins in the homely chat;
He stands in the shop of the artisan;
He sits, where the Master sat,
At the poor man's fire and the rich man's feast.
But who to-day are the poor,
And who are the rich? Ask him who keeps
The treasures that ever endure.
Once more the green and the grove resound
With the merry children's din;
He hears their shout at the Christmas tide,
When Santa Claus stalks in.
Once more he lists while the camp-fire roars
On the distant mountain-side,
Or, proving apostleship, plies the brook
Where the fierce young troutlings hide.
And now he beholds the wedding train
To the altar slowly move,
And the solemn words are said that seal
The sacrament of love.
Anon at the font he meets once more
The tremulous youthful pair,
With a white-robed cherub crowing response
To the consecrating prayer.
By the couch of pain he kneels again;
Again, the thin hand lies
Cold in his palm, while the last far look
Steals into the steadfast eyes;
And now the burden of hearts that break
Lies heavy upon his own--
The widow's woe and the orphan's cry
And the desolate mother's moan.
So blithe and glad, so heavy and sad,
Are the days that are no more,
So mournfully sweet are the sounds that float
With the winds from a far-off shore.
For the pastor has learned what meaneth the word
That is given him to keep,--
"Rejoice with them that do rejoice,
And weep with them that weep."
It is not in vain that he has trod
This lonely and toilsome way.
It is not in vain that he has wrought
In the vineyard all the day;
For the soul that gives is the soul that lives,
And bearing another's load
Doth lighten your own and shorten the way,
And brighten the homeward road.
Scheme | abcddefe ghfhijgj xkdkblxL xxmxnoco dpxpxxxx xiqixqrq xxdxlaxa xsrsxtxt xlxLmuxu nvxvxwvw |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (28%) |
Metre | 010101101 10100111 1111001001 1101 011001001 010011 00111111 10100111 111110101 0101001 1111111 1110111 110100111 010111 0110111011 011111 1111101001 1100101 011110100 0111101 110101100 1111111 010111101 10110111 111011111 0100111 110010101 101010 110110111 1011101 110111111 101011 110010111 0100101 1100110100 1110101 10111000111 1111101 011011111 01011001 11010011 1010101 111110101 110110 1111101101 1010101 1101101 101111 01110101 1010101 001011111 010011 11011111 0100101 1011101001 1011 101111101 010111 101110111 101011 010101111 1100111 01010011 00100101 110111001 1011111 11110111 10110111 1010111101 1110111 01111101 011111 111011111 110011 111011111 0010101 1011110111 0100101 1101101001 0100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 3,096 |
Words | 541 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 80 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 223 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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"The Pastor's Reverie" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/54311/the-pastor%27s-reverie>.
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