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To Waken An Old Lady

William Carlos Williams 1883 (Rutherford) – 1963 (Rutherford)

Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind --
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested --
the snow
is covered with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 22, 2023

17 sec read
265

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFDGHIAJKLMNOP
Closest metre Iambic dimeter
Characters 281
Words 57
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 18
Full analysis for To Waken An Old Lady »

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was a Latino-American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. more…

All William Carlos Williams poems | William Carlos Williams Books

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    "To Waken An Old Lady" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/39738/to-waken-an-old-lady>.

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