Analysis of Pigeon Post

Katharine Lee Bates 1859 (Falmouth) – 1929 (Wellesley)



White wing, white wing,
Lily of the air,
What word dost bring,
On whose errand fare?

Red word, red word,
Snowy plumes abhor.
I, Christ's own bird,
Do the work of war.


Scheme ABAB CDCD
Poetic Form Traditional rhyme
Quatrain 
Metre 1111 10101 1111 11101 1111 10101 1111 10111
Closest metre Iambic dimeter
Characters 173
Words 34
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 4, 4
Lines Amount 8
Letters per line (avg) 15
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 62
Words per stanza (avg) 16
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

10 sec read
70

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful Bates was born in Falmouth Massachusetts and lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton Massachusetts An historic plaque marks the site of her home The daughter of a Congregational pastor she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley While teaching there she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied She lived at Wellesley with Katharine Coman who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Comans death in 1915 It is debated if this relationship was an intimate lesbian relationship as different sources maintain or a platonic relationship called sometimes Boston marriages as the local historical society of her birthplace maintain more…

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