Analysis of The First of May ( A Memory)
Victor James Daley 1858 – 1905
THE WATERS make a music low:
The river reeds
Are trembling to the tunes of long ago—
Dead days and deeds
Become alive again, as on
I float, and float,
Through shadows of the golden summers gone
And springs remote.
Above my head the trees bloom out
In white and red
Great blossoms, that make glad the air about;
And old suns shed
Their rays athwart them. Ah, the light
Is bright and fair!
No suns that shine upon me now are bright
As those suns were.
And, gazing down into the stream,
I see a face,
As sweet as buds that blossom in a dream,
Ere sorrows chase
Fair dreams from men, and send in lieu
Sad thoughts. A wreath
Of blue-bells binds the head—a bluer blue
The eyes beneath.
This is my little Annie’s face;
My child-sweetheart
Whom long ago I lost in that dark place
Where all lives part.
Beside me still I see her stand,
Who is no more.
She walked with me through childhood, hand in hand,
But at the door
Of youth departed from me. Fain
Was I that day
To go with her. Ah, sweetheart, come again
This First of May!
Scheme | ABABXCXC DEDE FXFX GHGH IJIJ HKHK LMLM XNXN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010101 0101 11001011101 1101 01010111 1101 111010101 0101 01110111 0101 1101110101 0111 11011101 1101 1111011111 1110 01010101 1101 1111110001 1101 11110101 1101 1111010101 0101 1111011 111 1101110111 1111 01111101 1111 111111101 1101 11010111 1111 111011101 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,132 |
Words | 200 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 99 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 85 Views
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"The First of May ( A Memory)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37533/the-first-of-may-%28-a-memory%29>.
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