Analysis of The Childless Father
William Wordsworth 1770 (Wordsworth House) – 1850 (Cumberland)
'Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away!
Not a soul in the village this morning will stay;
The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds,
And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.'
--Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green,
On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen;
With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow,
The girls on the hills made a holiday show.
Fresh sprigs of green box-wood, not six months before,
Filled the funeral basin at Timothy's door;
A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past;
One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last.
Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray,
The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away!
Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut
With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.
Perhaps to himself at that moment he said;
'The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead.'
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak;
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEFF AAGG HHII |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11001111001 101001011011 01111011001 0111101101 11011011001 10110101101 111011001111 0110110101 11111111101 1010010111 01011111 11111011111 11101101001 01001001101 11001111011 101001001111 01101111011 01111111011 111011101111 011101101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 976 |
Words | 193 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 148 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 402 Views
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"The Childless Father" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42339/the-childless-father>.
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