Analysis of To Willie and Henrietta

Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 (Edinburgh) – 1894 (Vailima, Samoa)



If two may read aright
These rhymes of old delight
And house and garden play,
You too, my cousins, and you only, may.

You in a garden green
With me were king and queen,
Were hunter, soldier, tar,
And all the thousand things that children are.

Now in the elders' seat
We rest with quiet feet,
And from the window-bay
We watch the children, our successors, play.

"Time was," the golden head
Irrevocably said;
But time which one can bind,
While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.


Scheme AABB CCDD AABB AAAA
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 11111 111101 010101 1111001101 100101 110101 010101 0101011101 100101 111101 010101 11010100101 110101 010001 111111 1101011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 488
Words 90
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 93
Words per stanza (avg) 22
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

26 sec read
74

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. more…

All Robert Louis Stevenson poems | Robert Louis Stevenson Books

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