Analysis of The Apology

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 (Boston) – 1882 (Concord)



Think me not unkind and rude
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.

There was never mystery
But 'tis figured in the flowers;
Was never secret history
But birds tell it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.


Scheme XAXA BCBC DEDE FGFG HIHI
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1110101 111010101 11101101 111111 111111 1110101 11110001 1010011 11101001 10101011 10010011 1110101 1110100 11100010 11010100 11110010 110111 1010101 01011101 1110001
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 594
Words 120
Sentences 6
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 92
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 25, 2023

36 sec read
438

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. more…

All Ralph Waldo Emerson poems | Ralph Waldo Emerson Books

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