Analysis of A Day
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
Talk not of sad November, when a day
Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,
And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,
Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.
On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines
Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,
Singing a pleasant song of summer still,
A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.
Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,
In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;
But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,
And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.
Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high
Above, the spires of yellowing larches show,
Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow
And jay and nut-hatch winter’s threat defy.
O gracious beauty, ever new and old!
O sights and sounds of nature, doubly dear
When the low sunshine warns the closing year
Of snow-blown fields and waves of Arctic cold!
Close to my heart I fold each lovely thing
The sweet day yields; and, not disconsolate,
With the calm patience of the woods I wait
For leaf and blossom when God gives us Spring!
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EFFE GHHG IJJI KAXK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1111010101 111110111 001111111 1011000101 10110101 111111011 1001011101 0111010111 1011000111 0011010111 1101011101 0111110111 100111101 0101110011 101001101 0101110101 1101010101 1101110101 101110101 1111011101 1111111101 0111011 1011010111 1101011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,058 |
Words | 192 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 110 Views
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