Analysis of The Nurse
Katharine Tynan 1861 (Ireland) – 1931
Such innocent companionship
Is hers, whether she wake or sleep,
'Tis scarcely strange her face should wear
The young child's grave and innocent air.
All the night long she hath by her
The quiet breathing, the soft stir,
Nor knows how in that tender place
The children's angels veil the face.
She wakes at dawn with bird and child
To earth new-washed and reconciled,
The hour of silence and of dew,
When God hath made His world anew.
She sleeps at eve, about the hour
Of bedtime for the bird and flower,
When daisies, evening primroses,
Know that the hour of closing is.
Her daylight thoughts are all on toys
And games for darling girls and boys,
Lest they should fret, lest they should weep,
Strayed from their heavenly fellowship.
She is as pretty and as brown
As the wood's children far from town,
As bright-eyed, glancing, shy of men,
As any squirrel, any wren.
Tender she is to beast and bird,
As in her breast some memory stirred
Of days when those were kin of hers
Who go in feathers and in furs.
A child, yet is the children's law,
And rules by love and rules by awe.
And, stern at times, is kind withal
As a girl-baby with her doll.
Outside the nursery door there lies
The world with all its griefs and sighs,
Its needs, its sins, its stains of sense:
Within is only innocence.
Scheme | ABCC DDEE FFGG DDXX HHBA IIJJ KKLL MXMX NNXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (44%) |
Metre | 1100010 10101111 11010111 011101001 10111110 01010011 11101101 01010101 11111101 1111010 010110011 11111101 111101010 11101010 1101010 110101101 0111111 01110101 11111111 11110010 11110011 10110111 11110111 11010101 10111101 100111001 11110110 11010001 01110101 01110111 0111111 10110101 110100111 01111101 11111111 01110100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,290 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 111 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 109 Views
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"The Nurse" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25054/the-nurse>.
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