Analysis of Love's Rose

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



I.
Hopes, that swell in youthful breasts,
Live not through the waste of time!
Love’s rose a host of thorns invests;
Cold, ungenial is the clime,
Where its honours blow.
Youth says, ‘The purple flowers are mine,’
Which die the while they glow.

II.
Dear the boon to Fancy given,
Retracted whilst it’s granted:
Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven,
Although on earth ’tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth’s slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.

III.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy’s bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can rend the shrine
In which its vermeil splendours shine.


Scheme abcbcDeD afgfgDfD aHiiiHee
Poetic Form
Metre 1 1110101 1110111 11011101 11101 1111 110101011 110111 1 10111010 0101110 10111010 111110 1111 111101110 110111 1 110101 110011010 1010101010 110110 110101 11001101 011111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 696
Words 125
Sentences 10
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 181
Words per stanza (avg) 41
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

37 sec read
175

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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