Analysis of The Empty House

Walter de la Mare 1873 (Charlton, London) – 1956 (Twickenham)



See this house, how dark it is
Beneath its vast-boughed trees!
Not one trembling leaflet cries
To that Watcher in the skies—
‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze,
Innocent of heaven’s ways,
Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright,
On secrets hidden from sight.’

‘Secrets,’ sighs the night-wind,
‘Vacancy is all I find;
Every keyhole I have made
Wails a summons, faint and sad,
No voice ever answers me,
Only vacancy.’
‘Once, once … ’ the cricket shrills,
And far and near the quiet fills
With its tiny voice, and then
Hush falls again.

Mute shadows creeping slow
Mark how the hours go.
Every stone is mouldering slow.
And the least winds that blow
Some minutest atom shake,
Some fretting ruin make
In roof and walls. How black it is
Beneath these thick boughed trees!


Scheme ABCCDDEE FFXXGGAXHH IIIIJJAB
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111 011111 11100101 1110001 01011101 1001101 1111101 1101011 101011 1001111 1001111 1010101 1110101 10100 110101 01010101 1110101 1101 11101 110101 1001111 001111 11101 110101 01011111 011111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 789
Words 138
Sentences 9
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 10, 8
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 196
Words per stanza (avg) 44
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 16, 2023

41 sec read
194

Walter de la Mare

Walter John de la Mare was an English poet short story writer and novelist best remembered for his works for children and The Listeners He was born in Kent and was educated at St Pauls Cathedral School His first book Songs of Childhood was published under the name Walter Ramal His 1921 novel Memoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction more…

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