Analysis of Valentine
Elinor Morton Wylie 1885 (Somerville, New Jersey) – 1928 (New York City, New York)
Too high, too high to pluck
My heart shall swing.
A fruit no bee shall suck,
No wasp shall sting.
If on some night of cold
It falls to ground
In apple-leaves of gold
I'll wrap it round.
And I shall seal it up
With spice and salt,
In a carven silver cup,
In a deep vault.
Before my eyes are blind
And my lips mute,
I must eat core and rind
Of that same fruit.
Before my heart is dust
By the end of all,
Eat it I must, I must
Were it bitter gall.
But I shall keep it sweet
By some strange art;
Wild honey I shall eat
When I eat my heart.
O honey cool and chaste
As clover's breath!
Sweet Heaven I shall taste
Before my death.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
Metre | 111111 1111 011111 1111 111111 1111 010111 1111 011111 1101 001101 0011 011111 0111 111101 1111 011111 10111 111111 01101 111111 1111 110111 11111 110101 111 110111 0111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 625 |
Words | 134 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 17 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 67 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 19 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 40 sec read
- 216 Views
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"Valentine" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10186/valentine>.
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