Analysis of Ghost House
Robert Frost 1874 (San Francisco) – 1963 (Boston)
I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me--
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.
They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,--
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.
Scheme | AABBA CCBXC DDEED FFGGF HHIIH JJKKJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (27%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 110010111 1101001001 011110101 001001011 001011101 1010100111 011110101 01011111 1110110101 01110111 111010101 0110011101 11100101 111111101 110111001 0111011 010101001 1110110101 110011111 011011111 1110011101 11111111 1101111 111100111 101110101 1110011101 111101101 110111101 010111101 110101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,148 |
Words | 222 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 153 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 829 Views
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"Ghost House" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/30857/ghost-house>.
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