Analysis of The Fount Of Tears

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



All hot and grimy from the road,
Dust gray from arduous years,
I sat me down and eased my load
Beside the Fount of Tears.

The waters sparkled to my eye,
Calm, crystal-like, and cool,
And breathing there a restful sigh,
I bent me to the pool.

When, lo! a voice cried: 'Pilgrim, rise,
Harsh tho' the sentence be,
And on to other lands and skies--
This fount is not for thee.

'Pass on, but calm thy needless fears,
Some may not love or sin,
An angel guards the Fount of Tears;
All may not bathe therein.'

Then with my burden on my back
I turned to gaze awhile,
First at the uninviting track,
Then at the water's smile.

And so I go upon my way,
Thro'out the sultry years,
But pause no more, by night, by day,
Beside the Fount of Tears.


Scheme abaC dede fgfg bhch ijij kbkC
Poetic Form Quatrain  (67%)
Metre 11010101 1111001 11110111 010111 01010111 110101 01010101 111101 11011101 110101 01110101 111111 11111101 111111 11010111 111101 11110111 111101 1100101 110101 01110111 10101 11111111 010111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 716
Words 146
Sentences 8
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 92
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
120

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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