Analysis of A Valentine To My Wife
Eugene Field 1850 (St. Louis) – 1895 (Chicago)
Accept, dear girl, this little token,
And if between the lines you seek,
You'll find the love I've often spoken—
The love my dying lips shall speak.
Our little ones are making merry
O'er am'rous ditties rhymed in jest,
But in these words (though awkward—very)
The genuine article's expressed.
You are as fair and sweet and tender,
Dear brown-eyed little sweetheart mine,
As when, a callow youth and slender,
I asked to be your Valentine.
What though these years of ours be fleeting?
What though the years of youth be flown?
I'll mock old Tempus with repeating,
'I love my love and her alone!'
And when I fall before his reaping,
And when my stuttering speech is dumb,
Think not my love is dead or sleeping,
But that it waits for you to come.
So take, dear love, this little token,
And if there speaks in any line
The sentiment I'd fain have spoken,
Say, will you kiss your Valentine?
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH GIGI AFAF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 011111010 01010111 110111010 01110111 1010111010 10110101 101111010 010010001 111101010 1111011 110101010 1111110 1111110110 11011111 11111010 11110001 011101110 011100111 111111110 11111111 111111010 01110101 010011110 1111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 892 |
Words | 163 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 114 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 145 Views
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"A Valentine To My Wife" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/12887/a-valentine-to-my-wife>.
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