Analysis of A Song (#2)

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



THOU art the soul of a summer's day,
Thou art the breath of the rose.
But the summer is fled
And the rose is dead
Where are they gone, who knows, who knows?
Thou art the blood of my heart o' hearts,
Thou art my soul's repose,
But my heart grows numb
And my soul is dumb
Where art thou, love, who knows, who knows?
Thou art the hope of my after years —
Sun for my winter snows
But the years go by
'Neath a clouded sky.
Where shall we meet, who knows, who knows?


Scheme ABCCBDBEEBFBGGB
Poetic Form Tetractys  (47%)
Metre 110110101 1101101 101011 00111 11111111 110111111 111101 11111 01111 11111111 110111101 111101 10111 10101 11111111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 457
Words 98
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 15
Lines Amount 15
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 345
Words per stanza (avg) 96
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
89

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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