Analysis of Autumn Crocuses

Guillaume Apollinaire 1880 (Rome) – 1918 (Paris)



The meadow is poisonous but pretty in the autumn
The cows that graze there are slowly poisoned
Meadow-saffron the colour of lilac and of shadows
Under the eyes grows there your eyes are like those flowers
Mauve as their shadows and mauve as this autumn
And for your eyes' sake my life is slowly poisoned

Children from school come with their commotion
Dressed in smocks and playing the mouth-organ
Picking autumn crocuses which are like their mothers
Daughters of their daughters and the colour of your eyelids
Which flutter like flowers in the mad breeze blown

The cowherd sings softly to himself all alone
While slow moving lowing the cows leave behind them
Forever this great meadow ill flowered by autumn


Scheme ABXCAB DDCXE EXA
Poetic Form
Metre 0111001100010 0111111010 1100111011 1001111111110 1111011110 011111111010 1011111010 1010100110 1010100111110 101110001111 11011000111 01110101101 111010011011 010111110110
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 702
Words 123
Sentences 1
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 5, 3
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 42
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 195
Words per stanza (avg) 40
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
164

Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire was an Italian-born French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Rome, in Italy, to a Polish mother. more…

All Guillaume Apollinaire poems | Guillaume Apollinaire Books

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