Analysis of I Know The Face Of Falsehood And Her Tongue

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



I know the face of Falsehood and her Tongue
Honeyed with unction, Plausible with guile,
Are dear to men, whom count me not among,
That owe their daily credit to her smile;
Such have been succoured out of great distress
By her contriving, if accounts be true:
Their deference now above the board, I guess,
Dishcharges what beneath the board is due.
As for myself, I'd liefer lack her aid
Than eat her presence; let this building fall:
But let me never lift my latch, afraid
To hear her simpering accents in the hall,
Nor force an entrance past mephitic airs
Of stale patchoulie hanging on my stairs.


Scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG
Poetic Form Shakespearean sonnet 
Metre 110111001 11110011 1111111101 1111010101 111111101 10110111 11001010111 11010111 111110101 1101011101 1111011101 110110001 11110111 11110111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 593
Words 110
Sentences 3
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 474
Words per stanza (avg) 108
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
95

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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