Analysis of A Love Letter to Her Husband
Anne Bradstreet 1612 (Northampton) – 1672 (Andover)
Phoebus make haste, the day's too long, begone,
The silent night's the fittest time for moan;
But stay this once, unto my suit give ear,
And tell my griefs in either Hemisphere:
(And if the whirling of thy wheels do n't drown'd
The woful accents of my doleful sound),
If in thy swift career thou canst make stay,
I crave this boon, this errand by the way:
Commend me to the man more lov'd than life,
Show him the sorrows of his widow'd wife,
My dumpish thoughts, my groans, my brackish tears,
My sobs, my longing hopes, my doubting fears,
And, if he love, how can he there abide?
My interest's more than all the world beside.
He that can tell the stars or Ocean sand,
Or all the grass that in the meads do stand,
The leaves in th' woods, the hail or drops of rain,
Or in a cornfield number every grain,
Or every mote that in the sunshine hops,
May court my sighs and number all my drops.
Tell him, the countless steps that thou dost trace,
That once a day thy spouse thou mayst embrace;
And when thou canst not treat by loving mouth,
Thy rays afar, salute her from the south.
But for one month I see no day (poor soul)
Like those far situate under the pole,
Which day by day long wait for thy arise,
O how they joy when thou dost light the skies.
O Phoebus, hadst thou but thus long from thine
Restrain'd the beams of thy beloved shine,
At thy return, if so thou couldst or durst,
Behold a Chaos blacker than the first.
Tell him here's worse than a confused matter,
His little world's a fathom under water,
Naught but the fervor of his ardent beams
Hath power to dry the torrent of these streams.
Tell him I would say more, but cannot well,
Opressed minds abrupted tales do tell.
Now post with double speed, mark what I say,
By all our loves conjure him not to stay.
Scheme | AABCDDEEFFGHIIJJAAKKLLMMNNOOAAPPQQRRSSEE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 101101111 0101010111 1111101111 011101010 010101111111 011011101 1011011111 1111110101 0111011111 1101011101 111111101 1111011101 0111111101 111110101 1111011101 1101100111 010111011111 1001101001 1100110011 1111010111 1101011111 1101111101 0111111101 1101010101 1111111111 111101001 1111111101 1111111101 1101111111 010111011 1101111111 0101010101 1111100110 11010101010 1101011101 11011010111 1111111101 111111 1111011111 11101101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,774 |
Words | 341 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 40 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,360 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 339 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 1:45 min read
- 147 Views
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"A Love Letter to Her Husband" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3069/a-love-letter-to-her-husband>.
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