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 Views
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"Why Silent?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18294/why-silent%3F>.
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