Analysis of Through Sleepy-Land
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Where do you go when you go to sleep,
Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
'Way--'way in where's Little Bo-Peep,
And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep
A-wandering 'way in there;--in there--
A-wandering 'way in there!
And what do you see when lost in dreams,
Little Boy, 'way in there?
Firefly-glimmers and glowworm-gleams,
And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,
And mermaids, smiling out--'way in where
They're a-hiding--'way in there!
Where do you go when the Fairies call,
Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
Wade through the clews of the grasses tall,
Hearing the weir and the waterfall
And the Wee Folk--'way in there--in there--
And the Kelpies--'way in there!
And what do you do when you wake at dawn,
Little Boy! Little Boy! what?
Hug my Mommy and kiss her on
Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,
And tell her everything I've forgot
About, a-wandering 'way in there--
Through the blind-world 'way in there!
Scheme | aBaabb cbccbb dBddbb xxeexbb |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111111 1011011 11011011 0101100101 010010101 0100101 011111101 101101 1010011 010011101 01101101 1010101 111110101 1011011 110110101 10010010 001110101 001101 0111111111 1011011 11100101 0101101 01010101 010100101 1011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 892 |
Words | 156 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 7 |
Lines Amount | 25 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 171 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 08, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 77 Views
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"Through Sleepy-Land" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21144/through-sleepy-land>.
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