Analysis of Ballad of Another Ophelia
David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)
Oh the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
Lamps in a wash of rain!
Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard,
Oh tears on the window pane!
Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
Full of disappointment and of rain,
Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples
Of autumn tell the withered tale again.
All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
Cluck for your yellow darlings.
For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
Huddled away in the dark,
Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,
Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.
Once I had a lover bright like running water,
Once his face was laughing like the sky;
Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter
On the buttercups, and the buttercups was I.
What, then, is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom?
What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?
’Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom;
What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men!
Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,
And her shift is lying white upon the floor,
That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm,
Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.
Oh the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,
Oh the golden sparkles laid extinct!
And oh, behind the cloud-sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,
Did you see the wicked sun that winked!
Scheme | ABAB CBCD DEDE FGFG HIHI JDJD JKXK CLCL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (88%) |
Metre | 101101100010 100111 10111111101 1110101 10111001110 11010011 101111110101 1101010101 1101111111 100111 11101001 1111010 101110111 1001001 1010101011101 01110101 111010111010 111110101 1010110101110 1010001011 11111000111010 11101111101 1011101000101110 10101110101 11111010111010 00111010101 101110110101011 10101010011 1011011111110 101010101 0101011110101 111010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,468 |
Words | 273 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 16, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 66 Views
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"Ballad of Another Ophelia" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7812/ballad-of-another-ophelia>.
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