Analysis of The Room Beneath the Rafters
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Sometimes when I have dropped asleep,
Draped in soft luxurious gloom,
Across my drowsy mind will creep
The memory of another room,
Where resinous knots in roofboards made
A frescoing of light and shade,
And sighing poplars brushed their leaves
Against the humbly sloping eaves.
Again I fancy in my dreams
I'm lying in my trundle-bed.
I seem to see the bare old beams
And unhewn rafters overhead;
The hornet's shrill falsetto hum
I hear again, and see him come
Forth from his mud-walled hanging house,
Dressed in his black and yellow blouse.
There, summer dawns, in sleep I stirred,
And wove into my fair dream's woof
The chattering of a martin bird,
Or rain-drops pattering on the roof.
Or, half awake, and half in fear,
I saw the spider spinning near
His pretty castle, where the fly
Should come to ruin by and by.
And there I fashioned from my brain
Youth's shining structures in the air,
I did not wholly build in vain,
For some were lasting, firm and fair.
And I am one who lives to say
My life has held more good than gray,
And that the splendor of the real
Surpassed my early dream's ideal.
But still I love to wander back
To that old time and that old place;
To thread my way o'er Memory's track,
And catch the early morning's grace
In that quaint room beneath the rafter,
That echoed to my childish laughter;
To dream again the dreams that grew
More beautiful as they came true.
Scheme | ABABCCDD EFEFGGHH IJIJKKLL MNMNOOPP QRQRSSTT |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (28%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 01111101 10101001 01110111 010010101 111011 011101 0101111 01010101 01110011 11001101 11110111 0110101 0101011 11010111 11111101 10110101 11010111 01011111 010010101 1111101 11010101 11010101 11010101 11110101 01110111 11010001 11110101 11010101 01111111 11111111 01010101 01110101 11111101 11110111 11111011 01010101 011101010 110111010 11010111 11001111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,390 |
Words | 256 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 218 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:19 min read
- 40 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Room Beneath the Rafters" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10893/the-room-beneath-the-rafters>.
Discuss this Ella Wheeler Wilcox poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In