Analysis of The Last Rose



'O WHICH is the last rose?'
A blossom of no name.
At midnight the snow came;
At daybreak a vast rose,
In darkness unfurl'd,
O'er-petall'd the world.

Its odourless pallor
Blossom'd forlorn,
Till radiant valour
Establish'd the morn--
Till the night
Was undone
In her fight
With the sun.

The brave orb in state rose,
And crimson he shone first;
While from the high vine
Of heaven the dawn burst,
Staining the great rose
From sky-line to sky-line.

The red rose of morn
A white rose at noon turn'd;
But at sunset reborn
All red again soon burn'd.
Then the pale rose of noonday
Rebloom'd in the night,
And spectrally white
   In the light
Of the moon lay.

But the vast rose
   Was scentless,
And this is the reason:
When the blast rose
   Relentless,
And brought in due season
The snow rose, the last rose
Congeal'd in its breath,
Then came with it treason;
The traitor was Death.

In lee-valleys crowded,
The sheep and the birds
Were frozen and shrouded
In flights and in herds.
In highways
And byways
The young and the old
Were tortured and madden'd
And kill'd by the cold.
But many were gladden'd
By the beautiful last rose,
The blossom of no name
That came when the snow came,
In darkness unfurl'd--
The wonderful vast rose
That fill'd all the world.


Scheme abbaCc dedefgfg ahihai ejejcfffx aagaxgakgk xlxlmmncncabbCac
Poetic Form Tetractys  (40%)
Metre 111011 010111 11011 11011 01001 10101 111 1001 11001 01001 101 101 001 101 011011 010111 11011 110011 10011 111111 01111 011111 11111 110111 101111 1001 011 001 1011 1011 11 011010 1011 010 010110 011011 01011 111110 01011 011010 01001 010010 01001 01 01 01001 01001 01101 11001 1010011 010111 111011 01001 010011 11101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,255
Words 228
Sentences 12
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 6, 8, 6, 9, 10, 16
Lines Amount 55
Letters per line (avg) 17
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 160
Words per stanza (avg) 38
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:12 min read
103

John Davidson

John Wynn Davidson was a brigadier general in the United States Army during the American Civil War and an American Indian fighter. more…

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