Analysis of The Orange Tree
John Shaw Neilson 1872 (Penola, South Australia) – 1942 (Melbourne, Victoria)
The young girl stood beside me.
I Saw not what her young eyes could see:
- A light, she said, not of the sky
Lives somewhere in the Orange Tree.
- Is it, I said, of east or west?
The heartbeat of a luminous boy
Who with his faltering flute confessed
Only the edges of his joy?
Was he, I said, borne to the blue
In a mad escapade of Spring
Ere he could make a fond adieu
To his love in the blossoming?
- Listen! the young girl said. There calls
No voice, no music beats on me;
But it is almost sound: it falls
This evening on the Orange Tree.
- Does he, I said, so fear the Spring
Ere the white sap too far can climb?
See in the full gold evening
All happenings of the olden time?
Is he so goaded by the green?
Does the compulsion of the dew
Make him unknowable but keen
Asking with beauty of the blue?
- Listen! the young girl said. For all
Your hapless talk you fail to see
There is a light, a step, a call
This evening on the Orange Tree.
- Is it, 1 said, a waste of love
Imperishably old in pain,
Moving as an affrighted dove
Under the sunlight or the rain?
Is it a fluttering heart that gave
Too willingly and was reviled?
Is it the stammering at a grave,
The last word of a little child?
- Silence! the young girl said. Oh, why,
Why will you talk to weary me?
Plague me no longer now, for I
Am listening like the Orange Tree.
Scheme | aaba cdcd efef gagA fhfh ieie jajA klkl mnmn baba |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (90%) Etheree (33%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0111011 111101111 01111101 1100101 11111111 01101001 111100101 10010111 11111101 0011011 11110101 11100100 10011111 11110111 1111111 11010101 11111101 10111111 1001110 110010101 11110101 10010101 11010011 10110101 10011111 11011111 11010101 11010101 1110111 1101 101111 1001101 110100111 11000101 1101101 01110101 10011111 11111101 11110111 110010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,376 |
Words | 274 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 101 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 23, 2023
- 1:22 min read
- 84 Views
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"The Orange Tree" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/24088/the-orange-tree>.
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