Analysis of If
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Dear love, if you and I could sail away,
With snowy pennons to the wind unfurled,
Across the waters of some unknown bay,
And find some island far from all the world;
If we could dwell there, ever more alone,
While unrecorded years slip by apace,
Forgetting and forgotten and unknown
By aught save native song-birds of the place;
If Winter never visited that land,
And Summer's lap spilled o'er with fruits and flowers,
And tropic trees cast shade on every hand,
And twinèd boughs formed sleep-inviting bowers;
If from the fashions of the world set free,
And hid away from all its jealous strife,
I lived alone for you, and you for me--
Ah! then, dear love, how sweet were wedded life.
But since we dwell here in the crowded way,
Where hurrying throungs rush by to seek for gold,
And all is common-place and work-a-day,
As soon as love's young honeymoon grows old:
Since fashion rules and nature yields to art,
And life is hurt by daily jar and fret,
'T is best to shut such dreams down in the heart
And go our ways alone, love, and forget.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH AIAI JKJK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1111011101 110110101 0101011011 0111011101 1111110101 101011101 0100010001 1111011101 1101010011 010111011010 01011111001 01111101010 1101010111 0101111101 1101110111 1111110101 1111100101 11001111111 0111010101 111111011 1101010111 0111110101 11111111001 01101011001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,043 |
Words | 193 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 135 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 117 Views
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"If" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10647/if>.
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