Analysis of Silence
Marianne Moore 1887 (Kirkwood) – 1972 (New York City)
My father used to say,
"Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow's grave
nor the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self reliant like the cat --
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth --
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint."
Nor was he insincere in saying, "`Make my house your inn'."
Inns are not residences.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110111 010010101110 111111 10110110 1010101 11111100 011110101111 1010110 011111 11110101 010101101010 1010101 1110101011111 1111000 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 517 |
Words | 95 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 409 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 91 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 29, 2023
- 28 sec read
- 198 Views
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"Silence" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/26358/silence>.
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