Analysis of I Gave My Heart To A Woman

William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)



I gave my heart to a woman –
I gave it her, branch and root.
She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,
She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it,
She trampled it where it fell,
She broke it all to pieces,
And each was a clot of hell.

There in the rain and the sunshine
They lay and smouldered long;
And each, when again she viewed them,
Had turned to a living song.


Scheme XXXX XAXA XBXB
Poetic Form Quatrain  (67%)
Metre 11111010 1110101 1111110 111101 1001111 1101111 1111110 0110111 1001001 11011 01101111 1110101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 369
Words 78
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 93
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 11, 2023

23 sec read
390

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". more…

All William Ernest Henley poems | William Ernest Henley Books

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