Analysis of The Little Hill

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



Oh, here the air is sweet and still,
And soft's the grass to lie on;
And far away's the little hill
They took for Christ to die on.

And there's a hill across the brook,
And down the brook's another;
But, oh, the little hill they took,—
I think I am its mother!

The moon that saw Gethsemane,
I watch it rise and set:
It has so many things to see,
They help it to forget.

But little hills that sit at home
So many hundred years,
Remember Greece, remember Rome,
Remember Mary's tears.

And far away in Palestine,
Sadder than any other,
Grieves still the hill that I call mine,—
I think I am its mother!


Scheme abab cdcD bexe fxfx gdgD
Poetic Form Quatrain  (80%)
Etheree  (30%)
Metre 11011101 0101111 0110101 1111111 01010101 0101010 11010111 1111110 01111 111101 11110111 111101 11011111 110101 01010101 010101 0101010 1011010 11011111 1111110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 591
Words 121
Sentences 6
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 91
Words per stanza (avg) 23
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 09, 2023

37 sec read
94

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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