Analysis of Telling the Bees
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
Here is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.
There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
And down by the brink
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
Heavy and slow;
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,
And the same brook sings of a year ago.
There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;
And the June sun warm
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
I mind me how with a lover's care
From my Sunday coat
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,
And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.
Since we parted, a month had passed, --
To love, a year;
Down through the beeches I looked at last
On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.
I can see it all now, -- the slantwise rain
Of light through the leaves,
The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,
The bloom of her roses under the eaves.
Just the same as a month before, --
The house and the trees,
The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, --
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.
Before them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back,
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.
Trembling, I listened: the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!
Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps
For the dead to-day:
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps
The fret and the pain of his age away."
But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin,
The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sung to the bees stealing out and in.
And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on: --
"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IXIX JKJK LMLM NONO PIPI DQDQ EHEH RSRS ATAT XXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (86%) |
Metre | 110111001 10111 1110100111 0010100101 110110111 0011 0011100101 0011100101 11011001 01101 1011011011 10010101 011110101 1001 0011100111 0011110101 11011101001 00111 1011110001 10111011 111110101 1111 111010111 011011101 11100111 1101 11011111 10101100111 111111011 11101 01110101 0110101001 10110101 01001 0111001101 10110111 011100101 1001 11100111 101110111 1001100101 10111 11111100111 110101111 111111101 10111 101111 0100111101 101111011 111111 011100111 110110100 0011110101 01111 111101111 10101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,068 |
Words | 403 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 202 Views
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"Telling the Bees" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23045/telling-the-bees>.
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