Analysis of The Birthday Wreath
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
Blossom and greenness, making all
The winter birthday tropical,
And the plain Quaker parlors gay,
Have gone from bracket, stand, and wall;
We saw them fade, and droop, and fall,
And laid them tenderly away.
White virgin lilies, mignonette,
Blown rose, and pink, and violet,
A breath of fragrance passing by;
Visions of beauty and decay,
Colors and shapes that could not stay,
The fairest, sweetest, first to die.
But still this rustic wreath of mine,
Of acorned oak and needled pine,
And lighter growths of forest lands,
Woven and wound with careful pains,
And tender thoughts, and prayers, remains,
As when it dropped from love's dear hands.
And not unfitly garlanded,
Is he, who, country-born and bred,
Welcomes the sylvan ring which gives
A feeling of old summer days,
The wild delight of woodland ways,
The glory of the autumn leaves.
And, if the flowery meed of song
To other bards may well belong,
Be his, who from the farm-field spoke
A word for Freedom when her need
Was not of dulcimer and reed.
This Isthmian wreath of pine and oak.
Scheme | AXBAAB CCXBBC DDEFFE CCXGGX HHICCI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (27%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 10010101 0101100 00110101 11110101 11110101 01110001 110101 11010100 01110101 10110001 10011111 01010111 11110111 1110101 01011101 10011101 01010101 11111111 0111 11110101 10010111 01011101 0101111 01010101 010100111 11011101 11110111 01110101 11110001 1111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,021 |
Words | 184 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 163 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
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"The Birthday Wreath" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23054/the-birthday-wreath>.
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