Analysis of The Pressed Gentian
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
The time of gifts has come again,
And, on my northern window-pane,
Outlined against the day's brief light,
A Christmas token hangs in sight.
The wayside travellers, as they pass,
Mark the gray disk of clouded glass;
And the dull blankness seems, perchance,
Folly to their wise ignorance.
They cannot from their outlook see
The perfect grace it hath for me;
For there the flower, whose fringes through
The frosty breath of autumn blew,
Turns from without its face of bloom
To the warm tropic of my room,
As fair as when beside its brook
The hue of bending skies it took.
So from the trodden ways of earth,
Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth,
And offer to the careless glance
The clouding gray of circumstance.
They blossom best where hearth-fires burn,
To loving eyes alone they turn
The flowers of inward grace, that hide
Their beauty from the world outside.
But deeper meanings come to me,
My half-immortal flower, from thee!
Man judges from a partial view,
None ever yet his brother knew;
The Eternal Eye that sees the whole
May better read the darkened soul,
And find, to outward sense denied,
The flower upon its inmost side
Scheme | XXAA BBCX DDEEFFGG HHCCIIJJ DDEEKKJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111101 01110101 1010111 01010101 01100111 10111101 0011101 10111100 1101111 00111111 110101101 01011101 11011111 10110111 11110111 01110111 11010111 11111111 01010101 0101110 110111101 11010111 010110111 11010111 11010111 110101011 11010101 11011101 001011101 11010101 01110101 01001111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,113 |
Words | 203 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 180 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 29, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 102 Views
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