Analysis of Guenevere
Sara Teasdale 1884 (St. Louis) – 1933 (New York City)
I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved: --
There is no other havoc left to do.
A little month ago I was a queen,
And mothers held their babies up to see
When I came riding out of Camelot.
The women smiled, and all the world smiled too.
And now, what woman's eyes would smile on me?
I still am beautiful, and yet what child
Would think of me as some high, heaven-sent thing,
An angel, clad in gold and miniver?
The world would run from me, and yet am I
No different from the queen they used to love.
If water, flowing silver over stones,
Is forded, and beneath the horses' feet
Grows turbid suddenly, it clears again,
And men will drink it with no thought of harm.
Yet I am branded for a single fault.
I was the flower amid a toiling world,
Where people smiled to see one happy thing,
And they were proud and glad to raise me high;
They only asked that I should be right fair,
A little kind, and gowned wondrously,
And surely it were little praise to me
If I had pleased them well throughout my life.
I was a queen, the daughter of a king.
The crown was never heavy on my head,
It was my right, and was a part of me.
The women thought me proud, the men were kind,
And bowed right gallantly to kiss my hand,
And watched me as I passed them calmly by,
Along the halls I shall not tread again.
What if, to-night, I should revisit them?
The warders at the gates, the kitchen-maids,
The very beggars would stand off from me,
And I, their queen, would climb the stairs alone,
Pass through the banquet-hall, a loathed thing,
And seek my chambers for a hiding-place,
And I should find them but a sepulchre,
The very rushes rotted on the floors,
The fire in ashes on the freezing hearth.
I was a queen, and he who loved me best
Made me a woman for a night and day,
And now I go unqueened forevermore.
A queen should never dream on summer eves,
When hovering spells are heavy in the dusk: --
I think no night was ever quite so still,
So smoothly lit with red along the west,
So deeply hushed with quiet through and through.
And strangely clear, and deeply dyed with light,
The trees stood straight against a paling sky,
With Venus burning lamp-like in the west.
I walked alone amid a thousand flowers,
That drooped their heads and drowsed beneath the dew,
And all my thoughts were quieted to sleep.
Behind me, on the walk, I heard a step --
I did not know my heart could tell his tread,
I did not know I loved him till that hour.
Within my breast I felt a wild, sick pain,
The garden reeled a little, I was weak,
And quick he came behind me, caught my arms,
That ached beneath his touch; and then I swayed,
My head fell backward and I saw his face.
All this grows bitter that was once so sweet,
And many mouths must drain the dregs of it.
But none will pity me, nor pity him
Whom Love so lashed, and with such cruel thongs.
Scheme | XAXB XCXB CXDE FXXGHXX XDFEICX DJCXXFHXXC XDKEXX LXEXXILBXFL XBXXJEXXXXK GXXA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011111 0101110111 0100110111 1111010111 0101011101 0101110111 111101110 0101010111 0111011111 1111000111 11111111011 11010101 0111110111 11001011111 1101010101 110010101 111001101 0111111111 1111010101 11010010101 1101111101 0101011111 1101111111 0101011 0101010111 1111110111 1101010101 0111010111 1111010111 0101110101 0111001111 0111111101 0101111101 1111110101 0101010101 0101011111 0111110101 110101011 0111010101 01111101 0101010101 01001010101 1101011111 1101010101 011111 0111011101 11001110001 1111110111 1101110101 1101110101 0101010111 011101011 1101011001 11010101010 1111010101 0111010011 0111011101 1111111111 11111111110 0111110111 0101010111 0111011111 1101110111 1111001111 1111011111 0101110111 1111011101 1111011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,828 |
Words | 569 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 10, 6, 11, 11, 4 |
Lines Amount | 68 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 222 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 57 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:51 min read
- 114 Views
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"Guenevere" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34511/guenevere>.
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