Analysis of Searching
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
These quiet Autumn days,
My soul, like Noah's dove, on airy wings
Goes out and searches for the hidden things
Beyond the hills of haze.
With mournful, pleading cries,
Above the waters of the voiceless sea
That laps the shore of broad Eternity,
Day after day, it flies,
Searching, but all in vain,
For some stray leaf that it may light upon,
And read the future, as the days agone -
Its pleasures, and its pain.
Listening patiently
For some voice speaking from the mighty deep,
Revealing all the things that it doth keep
In secret there for me.
Come back and wait, my soul!
Day after day thy search has been in vain.
Voiceles and silent o'er the future's plain
Its mystic waters roll.
God, seeing, knoweth best,
And in His time the waters shall subside,
And thou shalt know what lies beneath the tide,
Then wait, my soul, and rest.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EXEE DFFD GEEG HIIH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 110101 1111011101 1101010101 010111 110101 0101010101 1101110100 110111 101101 1111111101 010101011 110011 100100 1111010101 0101011111 010111 110111 1101111101 1010100101 110101 11011 0011010101 0111110101 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 838 |
Words | 154 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 108 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 52 Views
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"Searching" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10780/searching>.
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