Analysis of The Patchwork Bonnet
Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)
Across the room my silent love I throw,
Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight,
Your young stern profile and industrious fingers
Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show,
To Dinda's grave delight.
The needle dips and pokes, the cheerful thread
Runs after, follow-my-leader down the seam:
The patchwork pieces cry for joy together,
O soon to sit as a crown on Dinda's head,
Fulfilment of their dream.
Snippets and odd ends folded by, forgotten,
With camphor on a top shelf, hard to find,
Now wake to this most happy resurrection,
To Dinda playing toss with a reel of cotton
And staring at the blind.
Dinda in sing-song stretching out one hand
Calls for the playthings; mother does not hear:
Her mind sails far away on a patchwork Ocean,
And all the world must wait till she touches land;
So Dinda cries in fear,
Then Mother turns, laughing like a young fairy,
And Dinda smiles to see her look so kind,
Calls out again for playthings, playthings, playthings;
And now the shadows make an Umbrian Mary
Adoring, on the blind.
Scheme | ABXAB CDXCD EFEEF GXEGX HFXHF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101110111 1111001110 11110010010 0101010011 11101 0101010101 11010110101 0110111010 1111101111 1111 10011101010 111011111 1111110010 110101101110 010101 1001110111 110110111 01110110110 01011111101 110101 11011010110 0101110111 11011111 010111110 010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,012 |
Words | 183 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 25 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 163 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 94 Views
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