Analysis of Lines On A Friend, Who Died Of A Frenzy Fever, Induced By Calumnious Reports
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)
Edmund! thy grave with aching eye I scan,
And inly groan for heaven's poor outcast, man!
'Tis tempest all or gloom: in early youth,
If gifted with the Ithuriel lance of truth,
We force to start amid her feigned caress
Vice, siren-hag! in native ugliness,
A brother's fate will haply rouse the tear:
Onward we move in heaviness and fear!
But if our fond hearts call to pleasure's bower
Some pigmy folly in a careless hour,
The faithless guest shall stamp th' enchanted ground
And mingled forms of mis'ry rise around:
Heart-fretting fear, with pallid look aghast,
That courts the future woe to hide the past;
Remorse, the poisoned arrow in his side;
And loud lewd mirth, to anguish close allied:
Till frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping pain,
Darts her hot lightning flash athwart the brain.
Rest, injured shade! Shall slander squatting near
Spit her cold venom in a dead man's ear?
'Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow
In merit's joy, and poverty's meek woe;
Thine all, that cheer the moment as it flies,
The zoneless cares, and smiling courtesies.
Nursed in thy heart the firmer virtues grew,
And in thy heart they withered! Such chill dew
Wan indolence on each young blossom shed;
And vanity her filmy net-work spread,
With eye that rolled around in asking gaze,
And tongue that trafficked in the trade of praise.
Thy follies such! the hard world mark'd them well--
Were they more wise, the proud who never fell?
Rest, injured shade! the poor man's grateful prayer
On heaven-ward wing thy wounded soul shall bear.
As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,
And oft sit down upon its recent grass,
With introverted eye I contemplate
Similitude of soul, perhaps of -- fate!
To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assign'd
Energetic reason and a shaping mind,
The daring ken of truth, the patriot's part,
And pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart--
Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand
Drop friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand.
I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
A dreamy pang in the morning's fev'rish doze.
Is this piled earth our being's passless mound?
Tell me, cold grave! is death with poppies crown'd?
Tired sentinel! mid fitful starts I nod,
And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod!
Scheme | AABBXXCDEEFFGGHHII DXJJXXKKLLMMNN CCOOPP QQRRSSTT FFXF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1011110111 011110111 1101110101 110101111 1111010101 1101010100 010111101 10110101 11101111110 11010001010 01111110101 010111101 1101110101 1101011101 0101010011 0111110101 1101111101 1011010101 1101110101 1011000111 111100101 0110111 1111010111 011010100 1011010101 0011110111 11111101 010001111 1111010101 011100111 1101011111 0111011101 1101011101 11011110111 111111111 0111011101 11001110 1110111 1111011101 0101000101 01011101001 011110101 110101111 1110111011 1111101101 0101001011 1111101011 1111111101 10100110111 011111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,204 |
Words | 387 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 18, 14, 6, 8, 4 |
Lines Amount | 50 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 352 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 77 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 48 Views
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"Lines On A Friend, Who Died Of A Frenzy Fever, Induced By Calumnious Reports" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34272/lines-on-a-friend%2C-who-died-of-a-frenzy-fever%2C-induced-by-calumnious-reports>.
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