Analysis of Now I am a Plant, a Weed...
Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)
Now I am a plant, a weed,
Bending and swinging
On a rocky ledge;
And now I am a long brown grass
Fluttering like flame;
I am a reed;
An old shell singing
For ever the same;
A drift of sedge;
A white, white stone;
A bone;
Until I pass
Into sand again,
And spin and blow
To and fro, to and fro,
On the edge of the sea
In the fading light--
For the light fades.
But if you were to come you would not say:
"She is not waiting here for me;
She has forgotten." Have we not in play
Disguised ourselves as weed and stones and grass
While the strange ships did pass
Gently, gravely, leaving a curl of foam
That uncurled softly about our island home,
Bubbles of foam that glittered on the stone
Like rainbows? Look, darling! No, they are gone.
And the white sails have melted into the sailing sky...
Scheme | ABCDEABECFFDXGGHXX IHIDDJJFXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110101 10010 10101 01110111 10011 1101 11110 11001 0111 0111 01 0111 01101 0101 101101 101101 00101 1011 1110111111 11110111 1101011101 01001110101 101111 1010100111 11100110101 1011110101 111101111 0011110010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 778 |
Words | 159 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 18, 10 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 301 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 80 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 111 Views
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"Now I am a Plant, a Weed..." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25123/now-i-am-a-plant%2C-a-weed...>.
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