Analysis of Two Sunsets
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
In the fair morning of his life,
When his pure heart lay in his breast,
Panting, with all that wild unrest
To plunge into the great world's strife
That fills young hearts with mad desire,
He saw a sunset. Red and gold
The burning billows surged and rolled,
And upward tossed their caps of fire.
He looked. And as he looked the sight
Sent from his soul through breast and brain
Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.
His heart seemed bursting with delight.
So near the Unknown seemed, so close
He might have grasped it with his hand.
He felt his inmost soul expand,
As sunlight will expand a rose.
One day he heard a singing strain--
A human voice, in bird-like trills.
He paused, and little rapture-rills
Went trickling downward through each vein.
And in his heart the whole day long,
As in a temple veiled and dim,
He kept and bore about with him
The beauty of that singer's song.
And then? But why relate what then?
His smoldering heart flamed into fire--
He had his one supreme desire,
And plunged into the world of men.
For years queen Folly held her sway.
With pleasures of the grosser kind
She fed his flesh and drugged his mind,
Till, shamed, he sated turned away.
He sought his boyhood's home. That hour
Triumphant should have been, in sooth,
Since he went forth an unknown youth,
And came back crowned with wealth and power.
The clouds made day a gorgeous bed;
He saw the splendor of the sky
With unmoved heart and stolid eye;
He knew only West was red.
Then suddenly a fresh young voice
Rose, bird-like, from some hidden place,
He did not even turn his face;
It struck him simply as a noise.
He trod the old paths up and down.
Their ruch-hued leaves by Fall winds whirled--
How dull they were--how dull the world--
Dull even in the pulsing town.
O! worst of punishments, that brings
A blunting of all finer sense,
A loss of feelings keen, intense,
And dulls us to the higher things.
O! penalty most dire, most sure,
Swift following after gross delights,
That we no more see beauteous sights,
Or hear as hear the good and pure.
O! shape more hideous and more dread
Than Vengeance takes in creed-taught minds,
This certain doom that blunts and blinds,
And strikes the holiest feelings dead.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EFFE GHHX FGGF IJJI KCCK LMML CNNC OPPO XQQX RSSR TUUT VWWV OXXO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (87%) Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 00110111 11111011 10111101 11010111 111111010 1101101 01010101 010111110 11011101 11111101 10111111 11110101 11001111 11111111 1111101 1110101 11110101 01010111 11010101 11010111 00110111 10010101 11010111 01011101 01110111 1100110110 111101010 01010111 11110101 11010101 11110111 11110101 11111110 01011101 11111011 011111010 01110101 11010101 10110101 1110111 11000111 11111101 11110111 11110101 11011101 11111111 11101101 11000101 11110011 01011101 01110101 01110101 11001111 110010101 1111111 11110101 111100011 11010111 11011101 010100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,190 |
Words | 403 |
Sentences | 28 |
Stanzas | 15 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 114 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 40 Views
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"Two Sunsets" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10966/two-sunsets>.
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