Analysis of Ah! Little Lake
Helen Leah Reed 1864 (Saint John, ) – 1926 (Cambridge, Massachusetts,)
Ah! little lake, though fair thou art,
A sapphire flashing to the sky,
Thy charm is only for the eye,
Thy beauty cannot hold my heart.
Green hill-sides bending to thy shore
Gleam clear in the autumnal light,
While far above, Monadnock's height
Keeps rugged guard thy waters o'er.
And yet these very beauties cloy;
As in a prison I am bound,
Though fair the walls that gird me round,
My housemate is no longer joy.
Thy loveliness breeds discontent,
For far my foolish heart would be,
It longs for the unquiet sea,
And with desire is sorely rent.
Hateful the walls that me debar
From happier things that haunt me so,
Even my weary thoughts are slow
To reach the great, great world afar.
I half believe there is no world
Those cruel hill-tops there beyond.
Oh - for the wizard Merlin's wand!
That all these mountain curves uncurled.
I might behold the shore I love,
Might hear the roaring of the tide,
Might see the ocean, reaching wide
And boundless as the sky above.
One hour beside that sea-kissed beach
Quick throbbing to its love's caress,
Would yield to me more happiness
Than a whole life-time here could teach.
Scheme | ABBA CDDX EFFE GHHG CIIX XJJA KLLK MXXM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (75%) |
Metre | 11011111 010010101 11110101 11010111 11110111 11000101 110111 110111010 01110101 10010111 11011111 1111101 111001 11110111 111011 010101101 1001111 110011111 10110111 11011101 11011111 11011101 1101011 1111011 11010111 11010101 11010101 01010101 110011111 11011101 11111100 10111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,117 |
Words | 212 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 110 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:04 min read
- 16 Views
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"Ah! Little Lake" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55554/ah%21-little-lake>.
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