Analysis of Poor Withered Rose



Poor withered rose, she gave it me,
Half in revenge and half in glee;
Its petals not so pink by half
As are her lips when curled to laugh,
As are her cheeks when dimples gay
In merry mischief o'er them play.

Forgive, forgive, it seems unkind
To cast thy petals to the wind;
But it is right, and lest I err
So scatter I all thought of her.

Poor withered rose, so like my heart,
That wilts at sorrow's cruel dart.
Who hath not felt the winter's blight
When every hope seemed warm and bright?
Who doth not know love unreturned,
E'en when the heart most wildly burned?

Poor withered rose, thou liest dead;
Too soon thy beauty's bloom hath fled.
'Tis not without a tearful ruth
I watch decay thy blushing youth;
And though thy life goes out in dole,
Thy perfume lingers in my soul.


Scheme AABBCC DDXX EEFFDX GGHHII
Poetic Form
Metre 11011111 10010101 11011111 11011111 11011101 010101011 01011101 11110101 11110111 11011110 11011111 1111101 11110101 110011101 111111 111011101 1101111 1111111 11010101 11011101 01111101 10110011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 779
Words 153
Sentences 8
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 4, 6, 6
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 150
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 16, 2023

47 sec read
42

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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