Analysis of With The Wind
Madison Julius Cawein 1865 ( Louisville, Kentucky) – 1914 ( Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky)
'Twas when the wind was blowing from the billow-breaking sea,
The grey and stormy sea, I heard her calling me,
And in the woods and on the ways where leaves were whirling down,
And weeds were rustling brown,
I caught a glimpse of face and feet, a glimmer of her gown.
And there between the forest and a strip of wandering sea,
Of dark and dreaming sea, I heard her laugh at me;
And, oh! her voice was bugle-wild as are the wind and rain,
And drew my heart again
With all the lures of all the past and joy more keen than pain.
Upon a fir-dark hilltop by the sunset-jewelled sea,
The old and wrinkled sea, she shook her hair at me,
And I caught a misty shimmer of her frosty gown and veil,
And her hand waved rosy pale,
And my heart was fain to follow her upon the old-time trail.
Within a ferny hollow by the mermaid-calling sea,
The far and foaming sea, she turned her face to me:
Again I saw her beauty; and again she held me fast,
As she'd held me in the past,
And let her wild heart beat to mine as beats the autumn blast.
Beside a rib of wreckage by the tempest-haunted sea,
The sad and severing sea, she bade good-bye to me:
Oh, paler than the foam her face, and wilder than the night,
When not a star gives light,
And rain and wind and winter sweep like harpies from the height.
Oh, she who joined her gipsy joy to sorrow of the sea,
The gaunt and ghostly sea, will come again to me:
When Autumn leads the wild-fowl home and lights, like wandering gleams,
The camp-fires of her dreams,
Again my heart shall hear her call upon the gale that streams.
Scheme | AABBB AACXC AADDD AAEEE AAFFF AAGGG |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011101010101 010101110101 00010101110101 010101 11011101010101 010101000111001 110101110111 01011101110101 011101 11011101011111 01011110111 010101110111 011010101010101 0011101 011111100010111 010110101101 010101110111 01110100011111 1111001 01011111110101 01011101010101 0101001111111 1110101010101 110111 0101010111101 1111011110101 010101110111 110101110111001 0110101 01111101010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,533 |
Words | 304 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 200 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:31 min read
- 129 Views
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"With The Wind" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/43266/with-the-wind>.
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