Analysis of Had I not This, or This, I said
Emily Dickinson 1830 (Amherst) – 1886 (Amherst)
Had I not This, or This, I said,
Appealing to Myself,
In moment of prosperity—
Inadequate—were Life—
"Thou hast not Me, nor Me"—it said,
In Moment of Reverse—
"And yet Thou art industrious—
No need—hadst Thou—of us"?
My need—was all I had—I said—
The need did not reduce—
Because the food—exterminate—
The hunger—does not cease—
But diligence—is sharper—
Proportioned to the Chance—
To feed upon the Retrograde—
Enfeebles—the Advance—
Scheme | AXXX AXBB AXXX XCXC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (25%) |
Metre | 11111111 01011 01010100 010001 11111111 010101 01110100 111111 11111111 011101 0101010 010111 1100110 010101 1101010 1001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 471 |
Words | 71 |
Sentences | 2 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 83 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 17 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 16, 2023
- 21 sec read
- 646 Views
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"Had I not This, or This, I said" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/11668/had-i-not-this%2C-or-this%2C-i-said>.
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