Analysis of The Fruit-Gift
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
Last night, just as the tints of autumn's sky
Of sunset faded from our hills and streams,
I sat, vague listening, lapped in twilight dreams,
To the leaf's rustle, and the cricket's cry.
Then, like that basket, flush with summer fruit,
Dropped by the angels at the Prophet's foot,
Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness,
Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned beams
Of summery suns, and rounded to completeness
By kisses of the south-wind and the dew.
Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I knew
The pleasure of the homeward-turning Jew,
When Eshcol's clusters on his shoulders lay,
Dropping their sweetness on his desert way.
I said, 'This fruit beseems no world of sin.
Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise,
O'ercrept the wall, and never paid the price
Of the great mischief,--an ambrosial tree,
Eden's exotic, somehow smuggled in,
To keep the thorns and thistles company.'
Perchance our frail, sad mother plucked in haste
A single vine-slip as she passed the gate,
Where the dread sword alternate paled and burned,
And the stern angel, pitying her fate,
Forgave the lovely trespasser, and turned
Aside his face of fire; and thus the waste
And fallen world hath yet its annual taste
Of primal good, to prove of sin the cost,
And show by one gleaned ear the mighty harvest lost.
Scheme | ABBA XXCBCDDDEE FGGHFHIJKJKIIXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011101 1110110101 1111001011 1011000101 1111011101 110101011 1010111010 1101010101 1110101010 1101011001 110101111 0101010101 111011101 1011011101 111111111 110110010 101010101 1011010101 10101100 1101010100 01101110101 0101111101 1011100101 0011010001 01010101 01111100101 01011111001 1101111101 011111010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,274 |
Words | 224 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 10, 15 |
Lines Amount | 29 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 340 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 73 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 84 Views
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"The Fruit-Gift" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23103/the-fruit-gift>.
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