Analysis of To The Muse
Anna Akhmatova 1889 (Odessa) – 1966 (Moscow)
The Muse my sister looked in my face,
her gaze was bright and clear,
and she took away my golden ring,
the gift of the virginal year.
Muse! everyone else is happy –
girls, wives, widows – all around!
I swear I’d rather die on the rack
than live fettered and bound.
In time I’ll join the guessing-game,
pluck petals from the daisy’s wheel.
Each creature on this earth, I know,
must suffer love’s ordeal.
Tonight I pine for no one,
alone in my candlelit room;
but I don’t-don’t-don’t want to know
who’s kissing whom.
At dawn the mirrors, mocking, will say:
“Your gaze is not bright or clear.”
I’ll sigh: “The Muse my sister came
and took the gift of gifts away.”
1912
from Vercher (Evening), Poets Guild
(Translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward)
Scheme | XAXA XBXB CDED XFEF GACG XXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011101011 011101 011011101 01101001 1101110 1110101 111101101 111001 01110101 1101011 11011111 110101 0111111 010111 11111111 1101 110101011 1111111 11011101 01011101 1 11010101 01011010110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 776 |
Words | 140 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3 |
Lines Amount | 23 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 95 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 10, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 118 Views
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