Analysis of Night On The Prairies
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I
never realized before.
Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.
How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!
The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same
content.
I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day
exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless
around me myriads of other globes. 10
Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will
measure myself by them;
And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along
as those of the earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to
arrive.
O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me--as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
Scheme | AXXXX XX BBX XXAX XBXCCXXX XX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010 01011001010111 010100110110 1111110110111111 101001 1101010001 101101010 111100011 011101011010001 10 1110011101111011 0100 11101101111111 01111101 1101111001001111 10111 0111011101011101 11101 1101011111011101 111110111101111 1011010111111101 01 1111111001011110110 11111111111010011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,238 |
Words | 209 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 2, 3, 4, 8, 2 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 144 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 149 Views
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