Analysis of Yellow Clover
Katharine Lee Bates 1859 (Falmouth) – 1929 (Wellesley)
Must I, who walk alone,
Come on it still,
This Puck of plants
The wise would do away with,
The sunshine slants
To play with,
Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,
Which once in Parting for a time
That then seemed long,
Ere time for you was over,
We sealed our own?
Do you remember yet,
O Soul beyond the stars,
Beyond the uttermost dim bars
Of space,
Dear Soul, who found earth sweet,
Remember by love's grace,
In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song,
How suddenly we halted in our climb,
Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill,
Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet,
And gave them as a token
Each to Each,
In lieu of speech,
In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken,
Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet
With a strange dew of tears?
So it began,
This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover,
To be our tenderest language. All the years
It lent a new zest to the summer hours,
As each of us went scheming to surprise
The other with our homely, laureate flowers.
Sonnets and odes
Fringing our daily roads.
Can amaranth and asphodel
Bring merrier laughter to your eyes?
Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes,
Keep any wistful consciousness of earth,
Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love,
Simplicities of mirth,
Must follow them above
With touches of vague homesickness that pass
Like shadows of swift birds across the grass.
Beneath some foreign arch of sky,
How many a time the rover
You or I,
For life oft sundered look from look,
And voice from voice, the transient dearth
Schooling my soul to brook
This distance that no messages may span,
Would chance
Upon our wilding by a lonely well,
Or drowsy watermill,
Or swaying to the chime of convent bell,
Or where the nightingales of old romance
With tragical contraltos fill
Dim solitudes of infinite desire;
And once I joyed to meet
Our peasant gadabout
A trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat,
Twinkling a saucy eye
As potentates paced by.
Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing flame
From friendship's altar fire!
How proudly we would pluck and tame
The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay!
How swiftly they were sent
Far, far away
On journeys wide,
By sea and continent,
Green miles and blue leagues over,
From each of us to each,
That so our hearts might reach,
And touch within the yellow clover,
Love's letter to be glad about
Like sunshine when it came!
My sorrow asks no healing; it is love;
Let love then make me brave
To bear the keen hurts of
This careless summertide,
Ay, of our own poor flower,
Changed with our fatal hour,
For all its sunshine vanished when you died;
Only white clover blossoms on your grave.
Scheme | ABCDCDEFGEAHIIJKJGFBKLMMLHX NEXOPOQQBPCRSRSTTUEUVRVNWXBXWBEKHKUU YEYZXZ1 XEMMEXY S2 SHEE1 2 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (31%) |
Metre | 111101 1111 1111 0111011 011 111 1011101001010 11010101 1111 1111110 11101 110101 110101 010111 11 111111 010111 0101101001 11001100101 10001011101 11010101101 0111010 111 0111 01111101110 11010100101 101111 1101 110011010 1110110101 11011101010 1111110101 0101101010010 1001 110101 11001 110010111 110101011 1101010011 111010111 111 110101 110111011 111110101 01110111 11001010 111 1111111 01110101 101111 1101110011 11 01101010101 1101 1101011101 11011101 1111 111100010 011111 10101 011111 1000101 11011 101011010101 111010 11011101 011011 110101 1101 1101 110100 1101110 111111 1110111 010101010 11011101 11111 1101110111 111111 110111 1101 11101110 11101010 111110111 1011010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,522 |
Words | 466 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 27, 36, 14, 8 |
Lines Amount | 85 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 513 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 116 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 25, 2023
- 2:20 min read
- 78 Views
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"Yellow Clover" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/24937/yellow-clover>.
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