Analysis of At Twilight

Harriet Monroe 1860 (Chicago) – 1936 (Arequipa)



You are a painter—listen—
I'll paint you a picture too!
Of the long white lights that glisten
Through Michigan Avenue;
With the red lights down the middle
Where the street shines mirror-wet,
While the rain-strung sky is a fiddle
For the wind to feel and fret.
Look! far in the east great spaces
Meet out on the level lake,
Where the lit ships veil their faces
And glide like ghosts at a wake;
And up in the air, high over
The rain-shot shimmer of light,
The huge sky-scrapers hover
And shake out their stars at the night.
Oh, the city trails gold tassels
From the skirts of her purple gown,
And lifts up her commerce castles
Like a jewel-studded crown.
See, proudly she moves on, singing
Up the storm-dimmed track of time—
Road dark and dire,
Where each little light
Is a soul afire
Against the night!
Oh, grandly she marches, flinging
Her gifts at our feet, and singing!—

Have I chalked out a sketch in my rhyme ?


Scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGHGHEIXIJKLHLHJJ K
Poetic Form
Metre 1101010 1110101 10111110 110010 10111010 1011101 101111010 1011101 11001110 1110101 10111110 0111101 01001110 0111011 0111010 01111101 1010111 10110101 01101010 1010101 11011110 1011111 1101 11101 10101 0101 11011010 011101010 111101011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 922
Words 171
Sentences 9
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 28, 1
Lines Amount 29
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 357
Words per stanza (avg) 85
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 28, 2023

51 sec read
77

Harriet Monroe

Harriet Monroe was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet and patron of the arts. more…

All Harriet Monroe poems | Harriet Monroe Books

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