Analysis of Deep In the Quiet Wood

James Weldon Johnson 1871 (Jacksonville) – 1938 (Wiscasset)



Are you bowed down in heart?
Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?
Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,
Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,
From out the palpitating solitude
Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?
They are above, around, within you, everywhere.
Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.
They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.
Not let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale
Until, responsive to the tonic chord,
It touches the diapason of God's grand cathedral organ,
Filling earth for you with heavenly peace
And holy harmonies.


Scheme ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
Poetic Form
Metre 111101 1111010100111 1101110101 1111010101 110100010 1111110101 11010101110 100101011111 110101001010101 11111011010101 0101010101 1100111101010 1011111001 010100
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 634
Words 113
Sentences 11
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 504
Words per stanza (avg) 111
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 05, 2023

34 sec read
128

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is best remembered for his leadership within the NAACP as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and anthologies. He was also the first African-American professor at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University. more…

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