Analysis of My Portion is Defeat—today
Emily Dickinson 1830 (Amherst) – 1886 (Amherst)
My Portion is Defeat—today—
A paler luck than Victory—
Less Paeans—fewer Bells—
The Drums don't follow Me—with tunes—
Defeat—a somewhat slower—means—
More Arduous than Balls—
'Tis populous with Bone and stain—
And Men too straight to stoop again—,
And Piles of solid Moan—
And Chips of Blank—in Boyish Eyes—
And scraps of Prayer—
And Death's surprise,
Stamped visible—in Stone—
There's somewhat prouder, over there—
The Trumpets tell it to the Air—
How different Victory
To Him who has it—and the One
Who to have had it, would have been
Contender—to die—
Scheme | XAXXXX XXBCDCB DDAXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101 0111100 110101 01110111 01011101 110011 11001101 01111101 011101 01110101 0111 0101 110001 11110101 01011101 1100100 11111001 11111111 01011 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 592 |
Words | 93 |
Sentences | 1 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 7, 6 |
Lines Amount | 19 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 144 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 16, 2023
- 28 sec read
- 168 Views
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"My Portion is Defeat—today" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/11969/my-portion-is-defeat%E2%80%94today>.
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