Analysis of The Wheel of the Breast
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Through rivers of veins on the nameless quest
The tide of my life goes hurriedly sweeping,
Till it reaches that curious wheel o' the breast,
The human heart, which is never at rest.
Faster, faster, it cries, and leaping,
Plunging, dashing, speeding away,
The wheel and the river work night and day.
I know not wherefore, I know not whither,
This strange tide rushes with such mad force:
It glides on hither, it slides on thither,
Over and over the selfsame course,
With never an outlet and never a source;
And it lashes itself to the heat of passion
And whirls the heart in a mill-wheel fashion.
I can hear in the hush of the still, still night,
The ceaseless sound of that mighty river;
I can hear it gushing, gurgling, rushing,
With a wild, delirious, strange delight,
And a conscious pride in its sense of might,
As it hurries and worries my heart forever.
And I wonder oft as I lie awake,
And list to the river that seethes and surges
Over the wheel that it chides and urges—
I wonder oft if that wheel will break
With the mighty pressure it bears, some day,
Or slowly and wearily wear away.
For little by little the heart is wearing,
Like the wheel of the mill, as the tide goes tearing
And plunging hurriedly through my breast,
In a network of veins on a nameless quet,
From and forth, unto unknown oceans,
Bringing its cargoes of fierce emotions,
With never a pause or an hour for rest.
Scheme | ABAABCCDEDEEFFGDBGGDHIIHCCBBAAJJA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101110101 01111110010 111011001101 0101111011 101011010 10101001 0100101101 111111110 111101111 111101111 10010011 1101101001 011001101110 0101001110 11100110111 0101111010 11111010010 1010100101 0010101111 111001011010 0110111101 01101011010 1001111010 110111111 1010101111 1100100101 11011001110 101101101110 010100111 0011110101 101100110 101111010 11001111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,371 |
Words | 259 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 33 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,091 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 257 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 19, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 90 Views
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