Analysis of A Visit To The Asylum

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



Once from a big, big building,
When I was small, small,
The queer folk in the windows
Would smile at me and call.

And in the hard wee gardens
Such pleasant men would hoe:
"Sir, may we touch the little girl's hair!"—
It was so red, you know.

They cut me coloured asters
With shears so sharp and neat,
They brought me grapes and plums and pears
And pretty cakes to eat.

And out of all the windows,
No matter where we went,
The merriest eyes would follow me
And make me compliment.

There were a thousand windows,
All latticed up and down.
And up to all the windows,
When we went back to town,

The queer folk put their faces,
As gentle as could be;
"Come again, little girl!" they called, and I
Called back, "You come see me!"


Scheme XABA XCXC XDXD BEFE BGBG XFXF
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1101110 11111 0110010 111101 0001110 110111 111101011 111111 1111010 111101 11110101 010111 0111010 110111 0111101 011100 1001010 11101 0111010 111111 0111110 110111 1011011101 111111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 709
Words 145
Sentences 9
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 92
Words per stanza (avg) 23
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
119

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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