Analysis of In Youth I have Known One
How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods - her winds - her mountains - the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!
In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held - as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light - such for his spirit was fit -
And yet that spirit knew - not in the hour
Of its own fervour - what had o'er it power.
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told - or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night time, o'er the summer grass?
Doth o'er us pass, when as th' expanding eye
To the loved object - so the tear to the lid
Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
And yet it need not be - (that object) hid
From us in life - but common - which doth lie
Each hour before us - but then only bid
With a strange sound, as of a harpstring broken
T' awake us - 'Tis a symbol and a token -
Of what in other worlds shall be - and given
In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
Though not with Faith - with godliness - whose throne
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
Scheme | AAXX BCBCXCDD EDEFEFGG HIXIHIJJ JAJAJAKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011111 010100101 0101010001 01101100100 0111111101 01001011111 010010111 11010011111 1010111111 010011111011 01110110010 11111110110 0111111111 10101011110 1111011111 1111001101 1101111101 0110011 110100111011 111011100101 1101111110101 10110101101 1111010100 0111111101 1101110111 11001111101 1011110110 101110100010 11010111010 01011011101 1101111010 111110011 11110101110 11111111 11010011101 1011110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,687 |
Words | 325 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 243 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 64 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 10, 2023
- 1:39 min read
- 210 Views
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"In Youth I have Known One" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8448/in-youth-i-have-known-one>.
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