Analysis of Behind a Wall
Amy Lowell 1874 (Brookline) – 1925 (Brookline)
I own a solace shut within my heart,
A garden full of many a quaint delight
And warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright,
Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart
Shining things
With powdered wings.
Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors close
The ends of dreaming paths; a wanton wind
Jostles the half-ripe pears, and then, unkind,
Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose,
With content
Grown indolent.
By night my garden is o'erhung with gems
Fixed in an onyx setting. Fireflies
Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes.
In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stems
Of hollyhocks
Against the rocks.
So far and still it is that, listening,
I hear the flowers talking in the dawn;
And where a sunken basin cuts the lawn,
Cinctured with iris, pale and glistening,
The sudden swish
Of a waking fish.
Scheme | ABBACC XDDXXX EFFEGG HIIHJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101010111 01011100101 01110111 1011011111 101 1101 110111011 0111010101 101110101 1001000101 110 1100 111101111 101101010 1011001101 011110111 110 0101 1101111100 1101010001 0101010101 111010100 0101 10101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 808 |
Words | 142 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 159 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 35 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 140 Views
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"Behind a Wall" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/2206/behind-a-wall>.
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