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

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, scholar/translator/writer of antiquity specializing in Classical Greece and Rome, novelist and soldier in World War One. more…

All Robert Graves poems | Robert Graves Books

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