Analysis of The Poor Girl's Meditation
Padraic Colum 1881 (County Longford) – 1972 (Enfield)
I AM sitting here
Since the moon rose in the night,
Kindling a fire,
And striving to keep it alight;
The folk of the house are lying
In slumber deep;
The geese will be gabbling soon:
The whole of the land is asleep.
May I never leave this world
Until my ill-luck is gone;
Till I have cows and sheep,
And the lad that I love for my own;
I would not think it long,
The night I would lie at his breast,
And the daughters of spite, after that,
Might say the thing they liked best.
Love takes the place of hate,
If a girl have beauty at all:
On a bed that was narrow and high,
A three-month I lay by the wall:
When I bethought on the lad
That I left on the brow of the hill,
I wept from dark until dark,
And my cheeks have the tear-tracks still.
And, O young lad that I love,
I am no mark for your scorn;
All you can say of me is
Undowered I was born:
And if I've no fortune in hand,
Nor cattle and sheep of my own,
This I can say, O lad,
I am fitted to lie my lone!
Scheme | XAXAXBXB XXBCXDXD XEXEFGXG XHXHXCFC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101 1011001 10010 01011101 01101110 0101 011111 01101101 1110111 0111111 111101 001111111 111111 01111111 001011101 1101111 110111 10111011 101111001 01111101 111101 111101101 1111011 01110111 0111111 1111111 1111111 1111 01111001 11001111 111111 11101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 938 |
Words | 207 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 181 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:02 min read
- 54 Views
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