Analysis of The Trailing Arbutus
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made
Against the bitter East their barricade,
And, guided by its sweet
Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell,
The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell
Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet.
From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines
Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vines
Lifted their glad surprise,
While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees
His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze,
And snow-drifts lingered under April skies.
As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent,
I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent,
Which yet find room,
Through care and cumber, coldness and decay,
To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day
And make the sad earth happier for their bloom.
Scheme | AABCCB DDEFFE GGHIIH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101010111 010101110 010111 0111010101 01011010101 0111010111 1101111101 11010101001 101101 110110101 1101010111 0111010101 110100101011 1111110101 1111 1101010001 110101011 01011100111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 738 |
Words | 128 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 199 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 23, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 149 Views
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"The Trailing Arbutus" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23208/the-trailing-arbutus>.
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