Analysis of Madonna of the Evening Flowers

Amy Lowell 1874 (Brookline) – 1925 (Brookline)



All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired
I call: "Where are you?"
But there is only the oak-tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you? I go about searching.

Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me all these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet, Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.


Scheme AXBXXXXXXA BCXCXX AXXXCCCXX
Poetic Form
Metre 11111110 11110 11111 1111001110001 0111010 0110111 1110010111 11111 1001110 111110110 1111 1010011111 1010110111 111110 011 1101001110101 11110100110 101011011 10101001111010 111111 111111110 11111010 10010110101 01111100111 11011101111101001
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 930
Words 177
Sentences 12
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 10, 6, 9
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 239
Words per stanza (avg) 58
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

52 sec read
708

Amy Lowell

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. more…

All Amy Lowell poems | Amy Lowell Books

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