Analysis of The Clover

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



Some sings of the lily, and daisy, and rose,
And the pansies and pinks that the Summertime
throws
In the green grassy lap of the medder that lays
Blinkin' up at the skyes through the sunshiney days;
But what is the lily and all of the rest
Of the flowers, to a man with a hart in his brest
That was dipped brimmin' full of the honey and dew
Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew?
I never set eyes on a clover-field now,
Er fool round a stable, er climb in the mow,
But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane
As the smell of the clover I'm sniffin' again;
And I wunder away in a bare-footed dream,
Whare I tangle my toes in the blossoms that gleam
With the dew of the dawn of the morning of love
Ere it wept ore the graves that I'm weepin' above.

And so I love clover--it seems like a part
Of the sacerdest sorrows and joys of my hart;
And wharever it blossoms, oh, thare let me bow
And thank the good God as I'm thankin' Him now;
And I pray to Him still fer the stren'th when I die,
To go out in the clover and tell it good-bye,
And lovin'ly nestle my face in its bloom
While my soul slips away on a breth of purfume


Scheme ABACCDDEEFXXXGGHH IIFFJJXB
Poetic Form
Metre 11101001001 0010011010 1 00110110111 111011011 11101001101 1010101101011 11111101001 10110101101 11011101011 01101001001 11111111011 10110101101 011001001101 111011001011 101101101011 11110111101 01111011101 1011001111 0111011111 0101111111 011111101111 111001001111 01011011011 11110110111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,121
Words 232
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 17, 8
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 437
Words per stanza (avg) 115
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:11 min read
83

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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