Analysis of Burial

Edna St Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland, Maine) – 1950 ( Austerlitz, New York)



Mine is a body that should die at sea!
And have for a grave, instead of a grave
Six feet deep and the length of me,
All the water that is under the wave!

And terrible fishes to seize my flesh,
Such as a living man might fear,
And eat me while I am firm and fresh,--
Not wait till I've been dead for a year!


Scheme ABAB CDCD
Poetic Form Traditional rhyme
Quatrain 
Metre 1101011111 0110101101 11100111 1010111001 0100101111 11010111 011111101 111111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 302
Words 68
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 4, 4
Lines Amount 8
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 115
Words per stanza (avg) 33
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 27, 2023

20 sec read
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Edna St Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work.  more…

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