I Gave My Heart To A Woman

William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)



I gave my heart to a woman –
I gave it her, branch and root.
She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,
She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it,
She trampled it where it fell,
She broke it all to pieces,
And each was a clot of hell.

There in the rain and the sunshine
They lay and smouldered long;
And each, when again she viewed them,
Had turned to a living song.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 11, 2023

23 sec read
390

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXX XAXA XBXB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 369
Words 78
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". more…

All William Ernest Henley poems | William Ernest Henley Books

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