Analysis of A Winter's Tale

David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)



Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow,  
And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;  
Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go  
On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge.  

I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf
Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;  
But she’s waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half  
Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.  

Why does she come so promptly, when she must know  
That she’s only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;
The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow—  
Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?


Scheme ABAB XCXC ADAD
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 100101011101 01010111001 101110101 1010110111 1101010111 01011001101 111011010011 1100010101 11111101111 111001010010001 01111011111 111111111111
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 619
Words 111
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 39
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 154
Words per stanza (avg) 36
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
77

David Herbert Lawrence

David Herbert Lawrence was an English writer and poet. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. Lawrence's writing explores issues such as sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct. Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage". At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the literary critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness. more…

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