Analysis of Nemesis

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 (Boston) – 1882 (Concord)



Already blushes in thy cheek
The bosom-thought which thou must speak;
The bird, how far it haply roam
By cloud or isle, is flying home;
The maiden fears, and fearing runs
Into the charmed snare she shuns;
And every man, in love or pride,
Of his fate is never wide.

Will a woman's fan the ocean smooth?
Or prayers the stony Parcae sooth,
Or coax the thunder from its mark?
Or tapers light the chaos dark?
In spite of Virtue and the Muse,
Nemesis will have her dues,
And all our struggles and our toils
Tighter wind the giant coils.


Scheme AABBCCDD EEFFGGHH
Poetic Form
Metre 01010011 01011111 0111111 11111101 01010101 0101111 010010111 1111101 101010101 1101011 11010111 11010101 01110001 1001101 0110100101 1010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 538
Words 102
Sentences 6
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 207
Words per stanza (avg) 50
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

30 sec read
87

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. more…

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