Analysis of A Sudden Shower
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Barefooted boys scud up the street
Or skurry under sheltering sheds;
And schoolgirl faces, pale and sweet,
Gleam from the shawls about their heads.
Doors bang; and mother-voices call
From alien homes; and rusty gates
Are slammed; and high above it all,
The thunder grim reverberates.
And then, abrupt,--the rain! the rain!--
The earth lies gasping; and the eyes
Behind the streaming window-pane
Smile at the trouble of the skies.
The highway smokes; sharp echoes ring;
The cattle bawl and cowbells clank;
And into town comes galloping
The farmer's horse, with streaming flank.
The swallow dips beneath the eaves,
And flirts his plumes and folds his wings;
And under the catawba leaves
The caterpillar curls and clings.
The bumble-bee is pelted down
The wet stem of the hollyhock;
And sullenly, in spattered brown,
The cricket leaps the garden walk.
Within, the baby claps his hands
And crows with rapture strange and vague;
Without, beneath the rosebush stands
A dripping rooster on one leg.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KXKX LXLX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (71%) |
Metre | 111101 11101001 0110101 11010111 11010101 110010101 11010111 0101010 01010101 01110001 01010101 11010101 0111101 0101011 00111100 01011101 01010101 01110111 01000101 0100101 01011101 0111010 010101 01010101 01010111 01110101 0101011 01010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 972 |
Words | 167 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 113 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 08, 2023
- 50 sec read
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"A Sudden Shower" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20804/a-sudden-shower>.
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