Analysis of An Old-Fashioned Garden

Ellis Parker Butler 1869 (Muscatine) – 1937 (Williamsville)



Strange, is it not? She was making her garden,
Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day—
Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons—
Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way.

Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel
Grew until, angrily, she set me free—
Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,—
Ordaining bachelor’s buttons for me.

Strange, was it not? But seeds planted in anger
Sour in the earth and, ere long, a decay
Withered the bleeding hearts, blighted the buttons,
And—we were wed—in the old-fashioned way.


Scheme XABA XCXC XABA
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 11111110010 1001101011 1011001010 1001001101 100110111010 1011001111 100110110111 010101011 11111110010 10001011001 10010110010 0101001101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 559
Words 91
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 142
Words per stanza (avg) 29
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

27 sec read
126

Ellis Parker Butler

Ellis Parker Butler was an American author. more…

All Ellis Parker Butler poems | Ellis Parker Butler Books

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