Analysis of Ghosts
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
There are ghosts in the room.
As I sit here alone, from the dark corners there
They come out of the gloom,
And they stand at my side and they lean on my chair.
There's the ghost of a Hope
That lighted my days with a fanciful glow.
In her hand is the rope
That strangled her life out. Hope was slain long ago.
But her ghost comes to-night,
With its skeleton face and expressionless eyes,
And it stands in the light,
And mocks me, and jeers me with sobs and with sighs.
There's the ghost of a Joy,
A frail, fragile thing, and I prized it too much,
And the hands that destroy
Clasped it close, and it died at the withering touch.
There's the ghost of a Love,
Born with joy, reared with hope, died in pain and unrest,
But he towers above
All the others... this ghost: yet a ghost at the best.
I am weary, and fain
Would forget all these dead: but the gibbering host
Make my struggle in vain,
In each shadowy corner there lurketh a ghost.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
Metre | 111001 111101101101 111101 011111011111 101101 11011101001 001101 110011111101 101111 11100100001 011001 01101111011 101101 01101011111 001101 111011101001 101101 111111101001 111001 101011101101 111001 1011111011 111001 01100101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 918 |
Words | 185 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 119 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 101 Views
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"Ghosts" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10617/ghosts>.
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