Analysis of One By One
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Little by little and one by one,
Out of the ether, were worlds created;
Star and planet and sea and sun,
All in the nebulous Nothing waited
Till the Nameless One Who has many a name
Called them to being and forth they came.
All things mighty and all things small,
Stone and flower and sentient being,
Each is an answer to that one call,
A part of Himself that His will is freeing-
Freeing to go on the long, long way
That winds back home at the end of the day.
Little by little does mortal man
Build his castles for joy and glory,
And one by one time shatters each plan
And lowers his palaces, story by story-
Story by story, till earth is just
A row of graves in the lowly dust.
One by one, whatever was called,
Must be called back to the primal Centre.
Let no soul tremble or be appalled,
For the heart of the Maker is where we enter-
Is where we enter to gain new force
Before we are sent on another course.
And one by one, as He calls us back,
We shall find the souls that we loved with passion,
In the great way-stations along the track,
And clasp them again in the old, sweet fashion-
In the old, sweet fashion when earth we trod-
And journey along with them up to God.
Scheme | ABABCC DEDEFF GHGHII JKJKLL MAMANN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (27%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 101100111 1101001010 10100101 1001001010 10101111001 111100111 11100111 10100110 111101111 01101111110 101110111 1111101101 101101101 111011010 011111011 010110010110 101101111 011100101 1111011 1111101010 111101101 101101011110 111101111 0111110101 011111111 11101111110 0011100101 01101001110 0011101111 0100111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,154 |
Words | 235 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 12, 2023
- 1:10 min read
- 140 Views
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"One By One" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10734/one-by-one>.
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