Analysis of Carlos
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919
Last night I knelt low at my lady’s feet.
One soft, caressing hand played with my hair,
And one I kissed and fondled. Kneeling there,
I deemed my meed of happiness complete.
She was so fair, so full of witching wiles –
Of fascinating tricks of mouth and eye;
So womanly withal, but not too shy –
And all my heaven was compassed by her smiles.
Her soft touch on my cheek and forehead sent,
Like little arrows, thrills of tenderness
Through all my frame. I trembled with excess
Of love, and sighed the sigh of great content.
When any mortal dares to so rejoice,
I think a jealous Heaven, bending low,
Reaches a stern hand forth and deals a blow.
Sweet through the dusk I heard my lady’s voice.
‘My love! ’ she sighed, ‘my Carlos! ’ Even now
I feel the perfumed zephyr of her breath
Bearing to me those words of living death,
And starting out the cold drops on my brow.
For I am Paul – not Carlos! Who is he
That, in the supreme hour of love’s delight,
Veiled by the shadows of the falling night,
She should breathe low his name, forgetting me?
I will not ask her! ‘Twere a fruitless task,
For, woman-like, she would make me believe
Some well-told tale; and sigh, and seem to grieve,
And call me cruel. Nay, I will not ask.
But this man Carlos, whosoe’er he be,
Has turned my cup of nectar into gall,
Since I know he has claimed some or all
Of these delights my lady grants to me.
He must have knelt and kissed her, in some sad
And tender twilight, when the day grew dim.
How else could I remind her so of him?
Why, reveries like these have made men mad!
He must have felt her soft hand on his brow.
If Heaven were shocked at such presumptuous wrongs,
And plunged him in the grave, where he belongs,
Still she remembers, though she loves me now.
And if he lives, and meet me to his cost,
Why, what avails it? I must hear and see
That curst name ‘Carlos’ always haunting me –
So has another Paradise been lost.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EXXE FGGF HIIH JKKJ LMML JNNJ OPPO HQQH XJJX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (82%) |
Metre | 111111111 1101011111 0111010101 1111110001 1111111101 110011101 1111111 0111011101 0111110101 1101011100 111111011 1101011110 1101011101 1101010101 1001110101 110111111 1111110101 1100110101 1011111101 0101011111 1111110111 10001101101 110110101 1111110101 1111010101 1101111101 1111010111 0111011111 11110111 1111110011 111111111 1101110111 1111010011 010110111 1111010111 1100111111 1111011111 110011101001 0110011101 1101011111 0111011111 111111101 111101101 110101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,922 |
Words | 370 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:51 min read
- 116 Views
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"Carlos" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10561/carlos>.
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