Analysis of An April Dawn.
Kate Seymour Maclean 1836 ( Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania) – 1918 ( New York)
All night a slow soft rain,
A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land,
Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand
Beat at the lattice, ceased, and beat again,
And fled like some wild startled thing pursued
By demons of the night and solitude,
Returning ever--wistful--timid--fain--
The intermittent rain.
And still the sad hours crept
Within uncounted, the while hopes and fears
Swayed our full hearts, and overflowed in tears
That fell in silence, as she waked or slept,
Still drawing nearer to that unknown shore
Whence foot of mortal cometh nevermore,
And still the rain was as a pulse that kept
Time as the slow hours crept.
The plummet of the night
Sank through the hollow dark that closed us round,
A lamp lit globe of space; outside, the sound
Of rain-drops falling from abysmal height
To vast mysterious depths rose faint and far,
Like a dull muffled echo from some star
Swung, like our own, an orb of tears and light
In the unheeding night.
But when the April dawn
Touched the closed lattice softly, and a bird,
Too early wakened from its sleep, was stirred,
And trilled a sudden note broke off, withdrawn,
She heard and woke. All silently she laid
Her gentle hands in ours, with such a look as made
A rainbow of tears it fell upon,
Caught from another and a heavenlier dawn,
Fixed--trembled--and was gone.
Swung, like our own, an orb of tears and light
In the unheeding night.
But when the April dawn
Touched the closed lattice softly, and a bird,
Too early wakened from its sleep, was stirred,
And trilled a sudden note broke off, withdrawn,
She heard and woke. All silently she laid
Her gentle hands in ours, with such a look as made
A rainbow of tears it fell upon,
Caught from another and a heavenlier dawn,
Fixed--trembled--and was gone.
Scheme | abbaccaa deedffdd ghhgiiGG JKKJLLMJJGG JKKJLLMJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110111 01001010101 1001010101 1101010101 0111110101 110101010 0101010101 00101 0101101 011001101 1101100101 1101011111 1101011011 111101010 0101110111 1101101 010101 1101011111 0111111101 1111010101 11010011101 1011010111 11101111101 0011 110101 1011010001 110111111 0101011101 1101110011 0101010110111 01111101 110100011 110011 11101111101 0011 110101 1011010001 110111111 0101011101 1101110011 0101010110111 01111101 110100011 110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,714 |
Words | 313 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 11, 9 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 275 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 62 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 7 Views
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"An April Dawn." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Sep. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56048/an-april-dawn.>.
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