Analysis of If I Had Known
Alice Dunbar-Nelson 1875 (New Orleans, Louisiana) – 1935 ( Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
If I had known
Two years ago how drear this life should be,
And crowd upon itself all-strangely sad,
Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
If I had known.
If I had known,
Two years ago the impotence of love,
The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,
But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,
And there to master all the world of mind,
If I had known.
Scheme | AxxxxxxA AxxaxaxA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111 1101111111 0101011101 10101111111 100101001101 101011111 111101111 1111 1111 1101010011 01101110001 111110111 1111010101 11010101011 0111010111 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 649 |
Words | 111 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 230 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 56 |
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"If I Had Known" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/54200/if-i-had-known>.
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