Analysis of The White Moth
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch 1863 (Bodmin, Cornwall) – 1944 (Cornwall)
IF a leaf rustled, she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
And do they turn and turn in fright,
Those little feet, in so much night?
The light above the poet’s head
Streamed on the page and on the cloth,
And twice and thrice there buffeted
On the black pane a white-winged moth:
’T was Annie’s soul that beat outside
And “Open, open, open!” cried:
“I could not find the way to God;
There were too many flaming suns
For signposts, and the fearful road
Led over wastes where millions
Of tangled comets hissed and burned—
I was bewildered and I turned.
“O, it was easy then! I knew
Your window and no star beside.
Look up, and take me back to you!”
—He rose and thrust the window wide.
’T was but because his brain was hot
With rhyming; for he heard her not.
But poets polishing a phrase
Show anger over trivial things;
And as she blundered in the blaze
Towards him, on ecstatic wings,
He raised a hand and smote her dead;
Then wrote “That I had died instead!”
Scheme | ABABCC DEXEFF XGXGHH IFIFJJ KLKLDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (33%) |
Metre | 1011111 01110101 11110101 11011101 01110101 11010111 01010101 11010101 0101101 10110111 11111111 01010101 11110111 10110101 1100101 1101110 11010101 11010011 11110111 11001101 11011111 11010101 111011111 11011101 11010001 110101001 01110001 01110101 11010101 11111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,110 |
Words | 204 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 158 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 35 Views
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