Analysis of To Alex. Smith, The 'Glasgow Poet,' On His Sonnet To 'Fame'
George Meredith 1828 (Portsmouth, Hampshire) – 1909 (Box Hill, Surrey)
Not vainly doth the earnest voice of man
Call for the thing that is his pure desire!
Fame is the birthright of the living lyre!
To noble impulse Nature puts no ban.
Nor vainly to the Sphinx thy voice was raised!
Tho' all thy great emotions like a sea,
Against her stony immortality,
Shatter themselves unheeded and amazed.
Time moves behind her in a blind eclipse:
Yet if in her cold eyes the end of all
Be visible, as on her large closed lips
Hangs dumb the awful riddle of the earth; -
She sees, and she might speak, since that wild call,
The mighty warning of a Poet's birth.
| Scheme | ABCADEEDFGFHGH |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 1101010111 11011111010 110110101 1101010111 1101011111 1111010101 010100100 1001010001 1101000101 1100110111 1100110111 1101010101 1101111111 0101010101 |
| Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
| Characters | 586 |
| Words | 112 |
| Sentences | 7 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 14 |
| Lines Amount | 14 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
| Words per line (avg) | 8 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 452 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 110 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
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"To Alex. Smith, The 'Glasgow Poet,' On His Sonnet To 'Fame'" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15686/to-alex.-smith%2C-the-%27glasgow-poet%2C%27-on-his-sonnet-to-%27fame%27>.
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