Analysis of A Letter from a Girl to Her Own Old Age
Alice Meynell 1847 (London) – 1922
Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses,
O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses
What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses.
O mother, for the weight of years that break thee!
O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee,
And from the changes of my heart must make thee!
O fainting traveller, morn is gray in heaven.
Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven?
And are they calm about the fall of even?
Pause near the ending of thy long migration;
For this one sudden hour of desolation
Appeals to one hour of thy meditation.
Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee
Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee,
Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee.
Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander
Is but a gray and silent world, but ponder
The misty mountains of the morning yonder.
Listen:-the mountain winds with rain were fretting,
And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting.
I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting.
What part of this wild heart of mine I know not
Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not,
And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not.
Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it
Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it,
And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it.
I have not writ this letter of divining
To make a glory of thy silent pining,
A triumph of thy mute and strange declining.
Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded;
Only one morning, and the day was clouded;
And one old age with all regrets is crowded.
O hush, O hush! Thy tears my words are steeping.
O hush, hush, hush! So full, the fount of weeping?
Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping?
Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her.
Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter
That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her:
The one who now thy faded features guesses,
With filial fingers thy gray hair caresses,
With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses.
Scheme | ABB CCC DDX DDD CCC EEE FFF GGG HHH FFF IIX FFF EEE ABB |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10011111010 11110110110 11110110010 11010111111 11011111011 01010111111 110100111010 11010101010 01110101110 11010111010 11110101010 01111011010 10110111011 10111101011 101111011011 11010111110 11010101110 01010101010 10010111010 01010101010 11011111010 11111111111 11011101111 010110101011 11110111101 11011111011 01110111111 11111101010 11010111010 01011101010 10110011110 10110001110 01111101110 1111111111 11111101110 11110111110 100111010010 11010101010 11110111010 01111101010 110010111010 1101110110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,974 |
Words | 365 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 110 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 1:49 min read
- 151 Views
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"A Letter from a Girl to Her Own Old Age" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1531/a-letter-from-a-girl-to-her-own-old-age>.
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