Analysis of If
Christina Georgina Rossetti 1830 (London) – 1894 (London)
If he would come to-day, to-day, to-day,
O, what a day to-day would be!
But now he's away, miles and miles away
From me across the sea.
O little bird, flying, flying, flying
To your nest in the warm west,
Tell him as you pass that I am dying,
As you pass home to your nest.
I have a sister, I have a brother,
A faithful hound, a tame white dove;
But I had another, once I had another,
And I miss him, my love, my love!
In this weary world it is so cold, so cold,
While I sit here all alone;
I would not like to wait and to grow old,
But just to be dead and gone.
Make me fair when I lie dead on my bed,
Fair where I am lying:
Perhaps he may come and look upon me dead—
He for whom I am dying.
Dig my grave for two, with a stone to show it,
And on the stone write my name;
If he never comes, I shall never know it,
But sleep on all the same.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GXGX HCHC IJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (83%) |
Metre | 1111111111 11011111 1110110101 110101 1101101010 1110011 1111111110 1111111 1101011010 01010111 111010111010 01111111 01101111111 1111101 1111110111 1111101 1111111111 111110 01111010111 1111110 11111101111 0101111 11101111011 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 829 |
Words | 185 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 103 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 92 Views
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"If" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5823/if>.
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