Analysis of City Trees

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



The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.

Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come,--
I know what sound is there.


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF
Poetic Form Traditional rhyme
Quatrain 
Metre 01011101 11010001 11011101 110101 01010011 110100100 11110111 010101 11011111 01010101 11110111 111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 380
Words 77
Sentences 3
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 100
Words per stanza (avg) 25
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 27, 2023

23 sec read
36

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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