Analysis of Beauty

Elinor Morton Wylie 1885 (Somerville, New Jersey) – 1928 (New York City, New York)



Say not of beauty she is good,
Or aught but beautiful,
Or sleek to doves' wings of the wood
Her wild wings of a gull.

Call her not wicked; that word's touch
Consumes her like a curse;
But love her not too much, too much,
For that is even worse.

O, she is neither good nor bad,
But innocent and wild!
Enshrine her and she dies, who had
The hard heart of a child.


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF
Poetic Form Traditional rhyme
Quatrain 
Metre 11110111 111100 11111101 011101 10110111 010101 11011111 111101 11110111 110001 01001111 011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 367
Words 76
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 91
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

23 sec read
45

Elinor Morton Wylie

Elinor Morton Wylie was an American poet and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s. "She was famous during her life almost as much for her ethereal beauty and personality as for her melodious, sensuous poetry." more…

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