Analysis of Solitude
Harold Monro 1879 (Brussels) – 1932
WHEN you have tidied all things for the night,
And while your thoughts are fading to their sleep,
You'll pause a moment in the late firelight,
Too sorrowful to weep.
The large and gentle furniture has stood
In sympathetic silence all the day
With that old kindness of domestic wood;
Nevertheless the haunted room will say:
'Someone must be away.'
The little dog rolls over half awake,
Stretches his paws, yawns, looking up at you,
Wags his tail very slightly for your sake,
That you may feel he is unhappy too.
A distant engine whistles, or the floor
Creaks, or the wandering night-wind bangs a door
Silence is scattered like a broken glass.
The minutes prick their ears and run about,
Then one by one subside again and pass
Sedately in, monotonously out.
You bend your head and wipe away a tear.
Solitude walks one heavy step more near.
Scheme | ABAB CDCDD EFEF GG HIHI XX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111101 0111110111 110100011 110011 0101010011 001010101 1111010101 001010111 11101 0101110101 1011110111 1111010111 1111110101 0101010101 11010011101 1011010101 0101110101 1111010101 010011 1111010101 101110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 825 |
Words | 152 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 5, 4, 2, 4, 2 |
Lines Amount | 21 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 111 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 129 Views
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"Solitude" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/16858/solitude>.
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