Analysis of To Wilhelmina
Sidney Lanier 1842 (Macon) – 1881 (Lynn)
A white face, drooping, on a bending neck:
A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves
Her stem: a foam-bell on a wave that swerves
Back from the undulating vessel's deck.
From out the whitest cloud of summer steals
The wildest lightning: from this face of thine
Thy soul, a fire-of-heaven, warm and fine,
In marvellous flashes its fair self reveals.
As when one gazes from the summer sea
On some far gossamer cloud, with straining eye,
Fearing to see it vanish in the sky,
So, floating, wandering Cloud-Soul, I watch thee.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EFFE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 0111010101 0111110101 0101110111 110100101 1101011101 0101011111 11010110101 011011101 1111010101 11110011101 1011110001 11010011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 525 |
Words | 93 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 12 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 136 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 28 sec read
- 94 Views
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"To Wilhelmina" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34819/to-wilhelmina>.
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