Analysis of The Concert
Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)
No, I will go alone.
I will come back when it's over.
Yes, of course I love you.
No, it will not be long.
Why may you not come with me?—
You are too much my lover.
You would put yourself
Between me and song.
If I go alone,
Quiet and suavely clothed,
My body will die in its chair,
And over my head a flame,
A mind that is twice my own,
Will mark with icy mirth
The wise advance and retreat
Of armies without a country,
Storming a nameless gate,
Hurling terrible javelins down
From the shouting walls of a singing town
Where no women wait!
Armies clean of love and hate,
Marching lines of pitiless sound
Climbing hills to the sun and hurling
Golden spears to the ground!
Up the lines a silver runner
Bearing a banner whereon is scored
The milk and steel of a bloodless wound
Healed at length by the sword!
You and I have nothing to do with music.
We may not make of music a filigree frame,
Within which you and I,
Tenderly glad we came,
Sit smiling, hand in hand.
Come now, be content.
I will come back to you, I swear I will;
And you will know me still.
I shall be only a little taller
Than when I went.
Scheme | ABXCDBXC AXXEAXXDFGG FFHXHBIHI XEXEX JKKBJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101 11111110 111111 111111 1111111 1111110 11101 01101 11101 10011 11011011 0101101 0111111 111101 0101001 11001010 100101 1010011 1010110101 11101 1011101 10111001 101101010 101101 10101010 10010111 010110101 111101 10111011110 11111100101 011101 100111 110101 11110 1111111111 011111 1111001010 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,077 |
Words | 223 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 11, 9, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 170 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 24, 2023
- 1:07 min read
- 58 Views
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"The Concert" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9461/the-concert>.
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