Analysis of How Old is my heart, how old?
Christopher John Brennan 1870 (Haymarket, New South Wales) – 1932 (Lewisham, New South Wales)
How old is my heart, how old, how old is my heart,
and did I ever go forth with song when the morn was new?
I seem to have trod on many ways: I seem to have left
I know not how many homes; and to leave each
was still to leave a portion of mine own heart,
of my old heart whose life I had spent to make that home
and all I had was regret, and a memory.
So I sit and muse in this wayside harbour and wait
till I hear the gathering cry of the ancient winds and again
I must up and out and leave the members of the hearth
to crumble silently into white ash and dust,
and see the road stretch bare and pale before me: again
my garment and my house shall be the enveloping winds
and my heart be fill'd wholly with their old pitiless cry.
Scheme | AXXXAXX XBXXBXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111111111 01110111110111 11111110111111 11111010111 11110101111 1111111111111 011110100100 111010111001 1110100110101001 1110101010101 110100011101 0101110101101 11001111001001 01111101111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 726 |
Words | 157 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 282 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 78 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 162 Views
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"How Old is my heart, how old?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6014/how-old-is-my-heart%2C-how-old%3F>.
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