Analysis of Song of Death

Gabriela Mistral 1889 (Vicuña) – 1957 (Hempstead)



Old Woman Census-taker,
Death the Trickster,
when you're going along,
don't you meet my baby.

Sniffing at newborns,
smelling for the milk,
find salt, find cornmeal,
don't find my milk.

Anti-Mother of the world,
People-Collector -
on the beaches and byways,
don't meet that child.

The name he was baptized,
that flower he grows with,
forget it, Rememberer.
Lose it, Death.

Let wind and salt and sand
drive you crazy, mix you up
so you can't tell
East from West,

or mother from child,
like fish in the sea.
And on the day, at the hour,
find only me.


Scheme AAXB XCXC XAXD XXAX XXXX DBAB
Poetic Form Quatrain  (33%)
Metre 1101010 1010 111001 111110 1011 10101 1111 1111 1010101 10010 101001 1111 011101 110111 0111 111 110101 1110111 1111 111 11011 11001 01011010 1101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 532
Words 101
Sentences 8
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 17
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 69
Words per stanza (avg) 17
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

31 sec read
168

Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. more…

All Gabriela Mistral poems | Gabriela Mistral Books

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