Analysis of The Rose
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
It tossed its head at the wooing breeze;
And the sun, like a bashful swain,
Beamed on it through the waving trees
With a passion all in vain,--
For my rose laughed in a crimson glee,
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
The honey-bee came there to sing
His love through the languid hours,
And vaunt of his hives, as a proud old king
Might boast of his palace-towers:
But my rose bowed in a mockery,
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
The humming-bird, like a courtier gay,
Dipped down with a dalliant song,
And twanged his wings through the roundelay
Of love the whole day long:
Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
The firefly came in the twilight dim
My red, red rose to woo--
Till quenched was the flame of love in him,
And the light of his lantern too,
As my rose wept with dewdrops three
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
And I said: I will cull my own sweet rose--
Some day I will claim as mine
The priceless worth of the flower that knows
No change, but a bloom divine--
The bloom of a fadeless constancy
That hides in the leaves in wait for me!
But time passed by in a strange disguise,
And I marked it not, but lay
In a lazy dream, with drowsy eyes,
Till the summer slipped away,
And a chill wind sang in a minor key:
'Where is the rose that waits for thee?'
I dream to-day, o'er a purple stain
Of bloom on a withered stalk,
Pelted down by the autumn rain
In the dust of the garden-walk,
That an Angel-rose in the world to be
Will hide in the leaves in wait for me.
Scheme | ababcC dedecC fgcgaC hihicC jkjkcc lflfcc bmbmcc |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111110101 00110101 11110101 1010101 111100101 010010111 01011111 11101010 0111110111 11111010 111100100 010010111 0101101001 111011 0111101 110111 1111111 010010111 01010011 111111 111011101 00111101 1111111 010010111 0111111111 1111111 0101101011 1110101 01101100 110010111 111100101 0111111 001011101 1010101 0011100101 11011111 1111100101 1110101 10110101 00110101 1110100111 110010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,504 |
Words | 310 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 167 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 46 Views
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"The Rose" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21111/the-rose>.
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