Analysis of To his Watch, When He Could Not Sleep
Edward Herbert 1582 (Eyton-on-Severn) – 1648 (London)
Uncessant Minutes, whil'st you move
you tell
The time that tells our life, which
though it run
Never so fast or farr, you'r new
begun
Short steps shall overtake; for though life well
May scape his own Account, it shall not yours,
You are Death's Auditors, that both divide
And summ what ere that life inspir'd endures
Past a beginning, and through you we bide
The doom of Fate, whose unrecall'd Decree
You date, bring, execute; making what's new,
Ill and good, old, for as we die in you,
You die in Time, Time in Eternity.
| Scheme | XAXBCBA DEDE FCCF |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | Tetractys (27%) |
| Metre | 110111 11 01111011 111 101111111 01 111101111 1111011111 1111001101 01111101001 1001001111 01111101 111101011 1011111101 1101100100 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 576 |
| Words | 98 |
| Sentences | 2 |
| Stanzas | 3 |
| Stanza Lengths | 7, 4, 4 |
| Lines Amount | 15 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
| Words per line (avg) | 6 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 134 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 31 sec read
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