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 Views
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"Between Sleep and Waking" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/26972/between-sleep-and-waking>.
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