Analysis of Baby's Dreams (second version)
Isabella Valancy Crawford 1850 (Dublin) – 1887 (Toronto)
WHAT doth the Moon, so lily white,
Busily weave this summer night?
'Silver ropes and diamond strands
For Baby's pink and dimpled hands;
Cords for her rosy palms to hold
While she floats, she flies,
To Dreamland, set with its shores of gold,
With its buds like stars shaken out of the skies,
Where the trees have tongues and the flowers have lips
To coax, to kiss
The velvet cheek of the Babe who slips
Thro' the Dream-gate up to a land like this.'
What is the mild Sea whispering clear
In the rosy shell of Baby's ear?
See! she laughs in her dimpled sleep.
What does she hear from the shining deep?
'Thy father comes a-sailing, a-sailing, a-sailing,
Safely comes a-sailing from islands fair and far.
O Baby, bid thy mother cease her tears and bitter
wailing:
The sailor's wife's his only port, his babe his beacon
star!'
Softly the Wind doth blow;
What say its murmurs low?
What doth it bring
On the wide, soft plume of its dewy wing?
'Only scented blisses
Of innocent, sweet kisses
For such a cheek as this is,
Of Baby in her nest,
From all the dreaming flowers,
A-nodding in their bowers,
Or bright on leafy towers,
Where the fairy monarchs rest.
But chiefly I bring,
On my fresh, sweet mouth,
Her father's kiss,
As he sails from the south.
He hitherward blew it at break of day;
I lay it, Babe, on thy tender lip;
I'll steal another and hie away,
And kiss it to him on his wave-rocked ship.
'I saw a fairy twine,
Of star-white jessamine,
A dainty seat, shaped like an airy swing,
With two round yellow stars
Against the misty bars
Of night; she nailed it high
In the pansy-purple sky,
With four taps of her little rainbow wing.
To and fro
That swing I'll blow.
'The baby moon in the amethyst sky
Will laugh at us as we float and fly,
And stretch her silver arms and try
To catch the earth-babe swinging by.'
Scheme | AABBCDCDEFEF GGHHIJXIXJ KKIIBLLMNNNMIOFOPQPQ XXIRRSSIKKSSSS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011101 10011101 1010101 11010101 11010111 11111 11111111 11111101101 10111001011 1111 010110111 1011110111 110111001 001011101 11100101 111110101 1101010010010 101010110101 1101110101010 10 0101110111110 1 100111 111101 1111 1011111101 10101 1100110 1101111 110001 1101010 0100110 1111010 101011 11011 11111 0101 111101 11111111 111111101 110100101 0111111111 110101 111100 0101111101 111101 010101 111111 0010101 111101011 101 1111 0101001001 111111101 01010101 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,763 |
Words | 343 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 10, 20, 14 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 348 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 85 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:44 min read
- 217 Views
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"Baby's Dreams (second version)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19887/baby%27s-dreams-%28second-version%29>.
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