Analysis of Between Sleep and Waking

Mathilde Blind 1841 (Mannheim) – 1896 (London)



SOFTLY in a dream I heard,
Ere the day was breaking,
Softly call a cuckoo bird
Between sleep and waking.

Calling through the rippling rain
And red orchard blossom;
Calling up old love again,
Buried in my bosom;

Calling till he brought you too
From some magic region;
And the whole spring followed you,
Birds on birds in legion.

Youth was in your beaming glance,
Love a rainbow round you;
Blushing trees began to dance,
Wreaths of roses crowned you.

And I called your name, and woke
To the cuckoo's calling;
And you waned in waning smoke,
As the rain was falling.

Had the cuckoo called 'Adieu,'
Ere the day was breaking?
All the old wounds bled anew
Between sleep and waking.


Scheme aBaB xcxc dede fdfd gbgb dBdB
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1000111 101110 101011 011010 10101001 011010 1011101 100110 1011111 111010 0011101 111010 1101101 10111 1010111 111011 0111101 101010 0110101 101110 101101 101110 1011101 011010
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 682
Words 125
Sentences 7
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 88
Words per stanza (avg) 20
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

37 sec read
62

Mathilde Blind

Mathilde Blind, was a German-born British poet. Her work was praised by Matthew Arnold and French politician and historian Louis Blanc. more…

All Mathilde Blind poems | Mathilde Blind Books

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