Analysis of Stafford's Cabin
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869 – 1935
Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man;
And something happened here before my memory began.
Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame
And all we have of them is now a legend and a name.
All I have to say is what an old man said to me,
And that would seem to be as much as there will ever be.
“Fifty years ago it was we found it where it sat.”—
And forty years ago it was old Archibald said that.
“An apple tree that’s yet alive saw something, I suppose,
Of what it was that happened there, and what no mortal knows.
Some one on the mountain heard far off a master shriek,
And then there was a light that showed the way for men to seek.
“We found it in the morning with an iron bar behind,
And there were chains around it; but no search could ever find,
Either in the ashes that were left, or anywhere,
A sign to tell of who or what had been with Stafford there.
“Stafford was a likely man with ideas of his own—
Though I could never like the kind that likes to live alone;
And when you met, you found his eyes were always on your shoes,
As if they did the talking when he asked you for the news.
“That’s all, my son. Were I to talk for half a hundred years
I’d never clear away from there the cloud that never clears.
We buried what was left of it,—the bar, too, and the chains;
And only for the apple tree there’s nothing that remains.”
Forty years ago it was I heard the old man say,
“That’s all, my son.”—And here again I find the place to-day,
Deserted and told only by the tree that knows the most,
And overgrown with golden-rod as if there were no ghost.
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IIJJ KKLL MMNN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1110101011101 01010101110001 1110111010111 01111111010001 1111111111111 01111111111101 1010111111111 0101011111011 11011101110101 11111101011101 1110101110101 01110111011111 11100101110101 01010111111101 100010101110 01111111111101 10101011010111 11110101111101 0111111101111 11110101111101 11110111110101 11010111011101 11011111011001 01010101110101 1010111110111 11110101110111 01001101011101 0011101111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,624 |
Words | 327 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 43 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 172 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 1:38 min read
- 122 Views
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