Analysis of Lines To R. L.
Henry Timrod 1828 (Charleston) – 1867 (Columbia)
That which we are and shall be is made up
Of what we have been. On the autumn leaf
The crimson stains bear witness of its spring;
And, on its perfect nodes, the ocean shell
Notches the slow, strange changes of its growth.
Ourselves are our own records; if we looked
Rightly into that blotted crimson page
Within our bosoms, then there were no need
To chronicle our stories; for the heart
Hath, like the earth, its strata, and contains
Its past within its present. Well for us,
And our most cherished secrets, that within
The round of being few there are who read
Beneath the surface. Else our very forms,
The merest gesture of our hands, might tell
Much we would hide forever. Know you not
Those eyes, in whose dark heaven I have gazed
More curiously than on my favorite stars,
Are deeper for such griefs as they have seen,
And brighter for the fancies they have shrined,
And sweeter for the loves which they have talked?
Oh! that I had the power to read their smiles,
Or sound the depth of all their glorious gloom.
So should I learn your history from its birth,
Through all its glad and grave experiences,
Better than if -- (your journal in my hand,
Written as only women write, with all
A woman's shades and shapes of feeling, traced
As with the fine touch of a needle's point) --
I followed you from that bright hour when first
I saw you in the garden 'mid the flowers,
To that wherein a letter from your hand
Made me all rich with the dear name of friend.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNDOPQRFSTUVWXYZ1 2 3 X4 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011111 1111110101 0101110111 0110110101 1001110111 001110101111 1001110101 0110111011 11001010101 1101110001 1101110111 01011010101 0111011111 01010110101 01010110111 1111010111 1101110111 110001111001 1101111111 0101010111 0101011111 11110101111 11011111001 11111100111 11110101000 1011110011 1011010111 0101011101 110111011 11011111011 11100101010 1101010111 1111101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,440 |
Words | 276 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 33 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,144 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 278 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:23 min read
- 101 Views
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"Lines To R. L." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18239/lines-to-r.-l.>.
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