Analysis of Aubade

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell 1887 (Scarborough) – 1964 (Weedon Lois)



JANE, Jane,
Tall as a crane,
The morning light creaks down again;

Comb your cockscomb-ragged hair,
Jane, Jane, come down the stair.

Each dull blunt wooden stalactite
Of rain creaks, hardened by the light,

Sounding like an overtone
From some lonely world unknown.

But the creaking empty light
Will never harden into sight,

Will never penetrate your brain
With overtones like the blunt rain.

The light would show (if it could harden)
Eternities of kitchen garden,

Cockscomb flowers that none will pluck,
And wooden flowers that 'gin to cluck.

In the kitchen you must light
Flames as staring, red and white,

As carrots or as turnips shining
Where the cold dawn light lies whining.

Cockscomb hair on the cold wind
Hangs limp, turns the milk's weak mind . . .

Jane, Jane,
Tall as a crane,
The morning light creaks down again!


Scheme AAB cc dd ee dd aa ff gg dd hh dd AAB
Poetic Form
Metre 11 1101 01011101 111101 111101 111101 11110101 101110 1110101 1010101 11010011 1101011 1101011 011111110 111010 1101111 010101111 0010111 1110101 110111010 10111110 111011 1110111 11 1101 01011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 817
Words 141
Sentences 10
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 54
Words per stanza (avg) 12
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 28, 2023

42 sec read
215

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess. She never married but became passionately attached to Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, and her home was always open to London's poetic circle, to whom she was generous and helpful. Sitwell published poetry continuously from 1913, some of it abstract and set to music. With her dramatic style and exotic costumes, she was sometimes labelled a poseur, but her work was praised for its solid technique and painstaking craftsmanship. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal. more…

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