Analysis of Hate
James Stephens 1882 (Dublin) – 1950
My enemy came nigh,
And I
Stared fiercely in his face.
My lips went writhing back in a grimace,
And stern I watched him with a narrow eye.
Then, as I turned away, my enemy,
That bitter heart and savage, said to me:
"Some day, when this is past,
When all the arrows that we have are cast,
We may ask one another why we hate,
And fail to find a story to relate.
It may seem then to us a mystery
That we should hate each other."
Thus said he,
And did not turn away,
Waiting to hear what I might have to say,
But I fled quickly, fearing had I stayed
I might have kissed him as I would a maid.
Scheme | AAXXABBCCDDBX BEEFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110011 01 110011 1111010010 0111110101 1111011100 1101010111 111111 1101011111 1111010111 0111010101 1111110100 1111110 111 011101 1011111111 1111010111 1111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 616 |
Words | 126 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 13, 5 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 222 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 62 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 37 sec read
- 182 Views
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"Hate" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20513/hate>.
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