Analysis of The House with Nobody in It
Joyce Kilmer 1886 (New Brunswick) – 1918 (Seringes-et-Nesles)
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
Scheme | AAXX BBCC DDEE FFGG HHII CJJKK AALL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01011110010101 111011111101001 101111010111111010 011010101011101 1101101011111111 111011101101 111110100111011 111011101110111 111011101010111 010111010101101 111101000111101 1111011111101001 11101110011101 11011111110101 11110111011111 01111011001011111 101110101101001 11001010101111001 1110100111101101 101110011111101 10111110111 0111101 1111101010101011 011110010101111001 10101111011101111 101011110010101 11011010101100101 11111110100100101001 111110011110110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 1,818 |
Words | 374 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 49 |
Words per line (avg) | 13 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 201 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 1:55 min read
- 1,892 Views
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