Analysis of Young Night-Thought

Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)



All night long and every night,
When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day before my eye.

Armies and emperor and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.

So fine a show was never seen
At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.

As first they move a little slow,
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside me close I keep
Until we reach the town of Sleep.


Scheme AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 11101001 11101101 11010101 11110111 10010001 1100100111 01001101 11010111 11011101 10110101 110011101 1100110 11110101 11010111 01011111 01110111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 525
Words 107
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 100
Words per stanza (avg) 26
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

32 sec read
177

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. more…

All Robert Louis Stevenson poems | Robert Louis Stevenson Books

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