Analysis of To E.
Amy Levy 1861 (London) – 1889 (London)
The mountains in fantastic lines
Sweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines
Blue as blue gems; athwart the pines
The lake gleams blue.
We three were here, three years gone by;
Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye,
You, stepped in learned lore, and I,
A poet too.
Our Poet brought us books and flowers,
He read us Faust; he talked for hours
Philosophy (sad Schopenhauer's),
Beneath the trees:
And do you mind that sunny day,
When he, as on the sward he lay,
Told of Lassalle who bore away
The false Louise?
Thrice-favoured bard! to him alone
That green and snug retreat was shown,
Where to the vulgar herd unknown,
Our pens we plied.
(For, in those distant days, it seems,
We cherished sundry idle dreams,
And with our flowing foolscap reams
The Fates defied.)
And after, when the day was gone,
And the hushed, silver night came on,
He showed us where the glow-worm shone;--
We stooped to see.
There, too, by yonder moon we swore
Platonic friendship o'er and o'er;
No folk, we deemed, had been before
So wise and free.
* * * * * * *
And do I sigh or smile to-day?
Dead love or dead ambition, say,
Which mourn we most? Not much we weigh
Platonic friends.
On you the sun is shining free;
Our Poet sleeps in Italy,
Beneath an alien sod; on me
The cloud descends.
Scheme | AAAB CCCB DDAE FFFE GGGH IIIH XXGJ KXKJ FFFL JJJL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01000101 11110111 11110101 0111 11011111 101011101 1101101 0101 1010111010 111111110 010011 0101 01111101 11110111 1111101 0101 1111101 11010111 11010101 10111 10110111 11010101 01101011 0101 01010111 00110111 11110111 1111 11110111 0101010010 11111101 1101 1 01111111 11110101 11111111 0101 11011101 101010100 011100111 0101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,223 |
Words | 237 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 86 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 21 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 95 Views
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"To E." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2166/to-e.>.
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