Analysis of A Discouraging Model

James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)



Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing,
With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing,
Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air,
And a knot of red roses sown in under there
Where the shadows are lost in her hair.

Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground
Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound;
And the gleam of a smile, O as fair and as faint
And as sweet as the master of old used to paint
Round the lips of their favorite saint!

And that lace at her throat-- and fluttering hands
Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands,
The flakes of their touches-- first fluttering at
The bow-- then the roses-- the hair and then that
Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat.

Ah, what artist on earth with a model like this,
Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss,
Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair
Nor the gold of her smile-- O what artist could dare
To expect a result half so fair?


Scheme AABBB CCDDD EEFFF GGBBB
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 10111101 101110101 1011111011 001111010101 10111001 1010110101 111001101011 001101111011 011101011111 101111001 01110101001 10110111101 01111011001 01101001011 1011011 111011101011 101111001101 101011101101 101101111011 101001111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 906
Words 184
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 177
Words per stanza (avg) 46
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

55 sec read
69

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. more…

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