Analysis of For Once, Then, Something
Robert Frost 1874 (San Francisco) – 1963 (Boston)
Others taught me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths--and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
Scheme | ABCCBDECFGCHIJB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 10111101111 1110111010 10100111010 11100101010 110010101 10110111011 11101101011 10111101010 10100101010 10110101111 10110101110 11110101010 1101111110 11101111110 10101111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 694 |
Words | 128 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 15 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 548 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 126 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 21, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 320 Views
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"For Once, Then, Something" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/30854/for-once%2C-then%2C-something>.
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