Analysis of Our Little Girl
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Her heart knew naught of sorrow,
Nor the vaguest taint of sin--
'Twas an ever-blooming blossom
Of the purity within:
And her hands knew only touches
Of the mother's gentle care,
And the kisses and caresses
Through the interludes of prayer.
Her baby-feet had journeyed
Such a little distance here,
They could have found no briers
In the path to interfere;
The little cross she carried
Could not weary her, we know,
For it lay as lightly on her
As a shadow on the snow.
And yet the way before us--
O how empty now and drear!--
How ev'n the dews of roses
Seem as dripping tears for her!
And the song-birds all seem crying,
As the winds cry and the rain,
All sobbingly,--'We want--we want
Our little girl again!'
Scheme | ABXBCDED FXCXFAGA XAEGXXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111110 1010111 11101010 1010001 00111010 1010101 00100010 101011 0101110 1010101 111111 001101 0101110 1110011 11111010 101101 0101011 1110101 11101110 1110110 00111110 1011001 11001111 1010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 693 |
Words | 135 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 41 sec read
- 94 Views
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"Our Little Girl" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20999/our-little-girl>.
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