Analysis of A little while, a little while,
Emily Jane Brontë 1818 (Thornton) – 1848 (Haworth)
A little while, a little while,
The noisy crowd are barred away;
And I can sing and I can smile
A little while I've holyday !
Where wilt thou go my harassed heart ?
Full many a land invites thee now;
And places near, and far apart
Have rest for thee, my weary brow -
There is a spot 'mid barren hills
Where winter howls and driving rain
But if the dreary tempest chills
There is a light that warms again
The house is old, the trees are bare
And moonless bends the misty dome
But what on earth is half so dear -
So longed for as the hearth of home ?
The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The garden-walk with weeds o'ergrown
I love them - how I love them all !
Shall I go there? or shall I seek
Another clime, another sky,
Where tongues familiar music speak
In accents dear to memory ?
Yes, as I mused, the naked room,
The flickering firelight died away
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day -
A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side -
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed in air
And, deepening still the dreamlike charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere -
That was the scene - I knew it well
I knew the pathways far and near
That winding o'er each billowy swell
Marked out the tracks of wandering deer
Could I have lingered but an hour
It well had paid a week of toil
But truth has banished fancy's power
I hear my dungeon bars recoil -
Even as I stood with raptured eye
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear
My hour of rest had fleeted by
And given me back to weary care -
Scheme | ABAC CDCD EFEX GHIH XJDJ KLKX MBMB FCFC XGXG NINI OPOP LILG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (67%) |
Metre | 01010101 01011101 01110111 010111 11111011 110010111 01010101 11111101 11011101 11010101 11010101 11011101 01110111 0110101 11111111 11110111 01110101 01110101 0101111 11111111 11111111 01010101 11010101 01011100 11110101 01001101 0101111 111111 01000111 11010101 01010111 1101001001 010111111 11111101 01001011 1111010 11011111 1101101 11010111 110111001 111101110 11110111 11110110 11110101 10111111 01011101 11011111 010111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,629 |
Words | 326 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 107 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 13, 2023
- 1:39 min read
- 105 Views
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"A little while, a little while," Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/12489/a-little-while%2C-a-little-while%2C>.
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