Analysis of Why Silent?

Henry Timrod 1828 (Charleston) – 1867 (Columbia)



Why am I silent from year to year?
Needs must I sing on these blue March days?
What will you say, when I tell you here,
That already, I think, for a little praise,
       I have paid too dear?

For, I know not why, when I tell my thought,
It seems as though I fling it away;
And the charm wherewith a fancy is fraught,
When secret, dies with the fleeting lay
       Into which it is wrought.

So my butterfly-dreams their golden wings
But seldom unfurl from their chrysalis;
And thus I retain my loveliest things,
While the world, in its worldliness, does not miss
       What a poet sings.


Scheme ABXBA CDCDC EFEFE
Poetic Form
Metre 111101111 111111111 111111111 10101110101 11111 1111111111 111111101 001101011 110110101 011111 111011101 1100111100 01101111 10101100111 10101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 582
Words 111
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 15
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 146
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
118

Henry Timrod

Henry Timrod was an American poet, often called the poet laureate of the Confederacy. more…

All Henry Timrod poems | Henry Timrod Books

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