Analysis of By an Autumn Fire
Lucy Maud Montgomery 1874 (New London, Prince Edward Island) – 1942 (Toronto)
Now at our casement the wind is shrilling,
Poignant and keen
And all the great boughs of the pines between
It is harping a lone and hungering strain
To the eldritch weeping of the rain;
And then to the wild, wet valley flying
It is seeking, sighing,
Something lost in the summer olden.
When night was silver and day was golden;
But out on the shore the waves are moaning
With ancient and never fulfilled desire,
And the spirits of all the empty spaces,
Of all the dark and haunted places,
With the rain and the wind on their death-white faces,
Come to the lure of our leaping fire.
But we bar them out with this rose-red splendor
From our blithe domain,
And drown the whimper of wind and rain
With undaunted laughter, echoing long,
Cheery old tale and gay old song;
Ours is the joyance of ripe fruition,
Attained ambition.
Ours is the treasure of tested loving,
Friendship that needs no further proving;
No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain,
Here we have largess of summer in fee
Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping,
At bay the chill of the autumn keeping,
While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping
In the fairest meadow of memory!
Scheme | ABBCCAADDAEFFFE ECCAADDAA DGAAAG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (30%) |
Metre | 111010111 1001 0101110101 11100101001 101010101 0110111010 111010 101001010 1111001110 1110101110 11001001010 00101101010 110101010 101001111110 11011101010 11111111110 110101 010101101 1010101001 10110111 1010111010 01010 10101011010 101111010 1111110010 1111011001 1101101110 1101101010 1101111010 001011100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,155 |
Words | 211 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 9, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 304 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 70 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 74 Views
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