Analysis of The Mango-Tree
He wiled me through the furzy croft;
He wiled me down the sandy lane.
He told his boy's love, soft and oft,
Until I told him mine again.
We married, and we sailed the main;
A soldier, and a soldier's wife.
We marched through many a burning plain;
We sighed for many a gallant life.
But his-God kept it safe from harm.
He toiled, and dared, and earned command;
And those three stripes upon his arm
Were more to me than gold or land.
Sure he would win some great renown:
Our lives were strong, our hearts were high.
One night the fever struck him down.
I sat, and stared, and saw him die.
I had his children-one, two, three.
One week I had them, blithe and sound.
The next-beneath this mango-tree,
By him in barrack burying-ground.
I sit beneath the mango-shade;
I live my five years' life all o'er-
Round yonder stems his children played;
He mounted guard at yonder door.
'Tis I, not they, am gone and dead.
They live; they know; they feel; they see.
Their spirits light the golden shade
Beneath the giant mango-tree.
All things, save I, are full of life:
The minas, pluming velvet breasts;
The monkeys, in their foolish strife;
The swooping hawks, the swinging nests;
The lizards basking on the soil,
The butterflies who sun their wings;
The bees about their household toil,
They live, they love, the blissful things.
Each tender purple mango-shoot,
That folds and droops so bashful down;
It lives; it sucks some hidden root;
It rears at last a broad green crown.
It blossoms; and the children cry-
'Watch when the mango-apples fall.'
It lives: but rootless, fruitless, I-
I breathe and dream;-and that is all.
Thus am I dead: yet cannot die:
But still within my foolish brain
There hangs a pale blue evening sky;
A furzy croft; a sandy lane.
Scheme | ABAX BCBC DEDE FGFG HIHI JXJX XHJH CKCK LMLM NFNF GOGO GBGB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (83%) |
Metre | 1111011 11110101 11111101 01111101 11001101 01000101 111100101 111100101 11111111 11010101 01110111 01111111 11111101 1010110101 11010111 11010111 11110111 11111101 01011101 110101001 11010101 111111110 11011101 11011101 11111101 11111111 11010101 01010101 11111111 0101101 01001101 01010101 01010101 0101111 0101111 11110101 11010101 11011101 11111101 11110111 11000101 11010101 11110101 11010111 11111101 11011101 11011101 0110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,708 |
Words | 319 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 111 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 1:36 min read
- 50 Views
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