Analysis of In Answer To A Request

Amy Lowell 1874 (Brookline) – 1925 (Brookline)



You ask me for a sonnet. Ah, my Dear,
Can clocks tick back to yesterday at noon?
Can cracked and fallen leaves recall last June
And leap up on the boughs, now stiff and sere?
For your sake, I would go and seek the year,
Faded beyond the purple ranks of dune,
Blown sands of drifted hours, which the moon
Streaks with a ghostly finger, and her sneer
Pulls at my lengthening shadow. Yes, 'tis that!
My shadow stretches forward, and the ground
Is dark in front because the light's behind.
It is grotesque, with such a funny hat,
In watching it and walking I have found
More than enough to occupy my mind.

I cannot turn, the light would make me blind.


Scheme ABBAABBACDECDE E
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 1111010111 111111011 110101111 0111011101 1111110101 1001010111 1111010101 1101010001 1111001111 111010001 1101010101 1101110101 0101010111 110111011 1101011111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 641
Words 125
Sentences 9
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 14, 1
Lines Amount 15
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 251
Words per stanza (avg) 62
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 16, 2023

37 sec read
66

Amy Lowell

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. more…

All Amy Lowell poems | Amy Lowell Books

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