The Day of Doom

Michael Wigglesworth (1631–1705) · 1662

Mixed forms · 2,825 lines in 9 sections

The Puritan bestseller of colonial New England: the Last Judgment in ballad measure, learned by heart by children.

Measured across the book

Across its 2,825 lines, 95% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 94% to 95%). Alliteration runs at 1.00 times what shuffling the words would give (0.20 observed against 0.20 expected). 25% of the lines have a feminine ending.

Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.

Contents

About this text

Public domain. Text from The Day of Doom; Or, A Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment With Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #58716. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.

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