Analysis of The Messenger Rose

Henry Timrod 1828 (Charleston) – 1867 (Columbia)



If you have seen a richer glow,
Pray, tell me where your roses blow!
Look! coral-leaved! and -- mark these spots
Red staining red in crimson clots,
Like a sweet lip bitten through
In a pique.  There, where that hue
Is spilt in drops, some fairy thing
Hath gashed the azure of its wing,
Or thence, perhaps, this very morn,
Plucked the splinters of a thorn.

Rose! I make thy bliss my care!
In my lady's dusky hair
Thou shalt burn this coming night,
With even a richer crimson light.
To requite me thou shalt tell --
What I might not say as well --
How I love her; how, in brief,
On a certain crimson leaf
In my bosom, is a debt
Writ in deeper crimson yet.
If she wonder what it be --
But she'll guess it, I foresee --
Tell her that I date it, pray,
From the first sweet night in May.


Scheme AABBCCDDEE FFGGHHIIJJKKLL
Poetic Form
Metre 11110101 11111101 11010111 11010101 1011101 0011111 11011101 11010111 11011101 101101 1111111 011011 1111101 110010101 111111 1111111 1110101 1010101 0110101 1010101 1110111 1111101 1011111 1011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 766
Words 158
Sentences 11
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 10, 14
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 293
Words per stanza (avg) 79
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
104

Henry Timrod

Henry Timrod was an American poet, often called the poet laureate of the Confederacy. more…

All Henry Timrod poems | Henry Timrod Books

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