Analysis of Lights
Sara Teasdale 1884 (St. Louis) – 1933 (New York City)
When we come home at night and close the door,
Standing together in the shadowy room,
Safe in our own love and the gentle gloom,
Glad of familiar wall and chair and floor,
Glad to leave far below the clanging city;
Looking far downward to the glaring street
Gaudy with light, yet tired with many feet,
In both of us wells up a wordless pity;
Men have tried hard to put away the dark;
A million lighted windows brilliantly
Inlay with squares of gold the winter night,
But to us standing here there comes the stark
Sense of the lives behind each yellow light,
And not one wholly joyous, proud, or free.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC ECFEFC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110101 10010001001 10101100101 1101010101 11110101010 1011010101 10111101101 01111101010 1111110101 0101010100 111110101 1111011101 1101011101 0111010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 609 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 2 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 158 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 535 Views
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"Lights" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34525/lights>.
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