Analysis of Sonnet 06: Bluebeard

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



This door you might not open, and you did;
   So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed.... Here is no treasure hid
   No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
   For greed like yours, no writhings of distress
But only what you see.... Look yet again—
   An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
   Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
   Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
   This now is yours. I seek another place.


Scheme ABABCDEDFGFGHH
Poetic Form
Metre 1111110011 1101011111 1101111101 1101110100 0111111101 111111101 1101111101 1101101 1101111111 101110111 0111011111 100111111 1111010111 1111110101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 604
Words 112
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 453
Words per stanza (avg) 110
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
172

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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