Analysis of A Drowsy Day



THE air is dark, the sky is gray,
The misty shadows come and go,
And here within my dusky room
Each chair looks ghostly in the gloom.
Outside the rain falls cold and slow —
Half-stinging drops, half-blinding spray.
Each slightest sound is magnified,
For drowsy quiet holds her reign;
The burnt stick in the fireplace breaks,
The nodding cat with start awakes,
And then to sleep drops off again,
Unheeding Towser at her side.
I look far out across the lawn,
Where huddled stand the silly sheep;
My work lies idle at my hands,
My thoughts fly out like scattered strands
Of thread, and on the verge of sleep—
Still half awake — I dream and yawn.
What spirits rise before my eyes!
How various of kind and form!
Sweet memories of days long past,
The dreams of youth that could not last,
Each smiling calm, each raging storm,
That swept across my early skies.
Half seen, the bare, gaunt-fingered boughs
Before my window sweep and sway,
And chafe in tortures of unrest.
My chin sinks down upon my breast;
I cannot work on such a day,
But only sit and dream and drowse.


Scheme ABCCBADEFFGDHIJJIHKLMMLKNAOOAF
Poetic Form Etheree  (30%)
Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 01110111 0101101 0101111 11110001 11011101 11011101 1101110 11010101 01100101 0101111 01111101 11101 11110101 11010101 11110111 11111101 11010111 11011101 11010111 11001101 11001111 01111111 11011101 11011101 11011101 01110101 01010101 11110111 11011101 11010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,046
Words 197
Sentences 10
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 30
Lines Amount 30
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 830
Words per stanza (avg) 195
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 16, 2023

59 sec read
183

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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