Analysis of A Winter Walk
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)
WE never had believed, I wis,
At primrose time when west winds stole
Like thoughts of youth across the soul,
In such an altered time as this,
When if one little flower did peep
Up through the brown and sullen grass,
We should just look on it, and pass
As if we saw it in our sleep.
Feeling as sure as that this ray
Which cottage children call the sun,
Colors the pale clouds one by one,--
Our touch would make it drop to clay.
We never could have looked, in prime
Of April, or when July trees
Shook full-leaved in the evening bree
Upon the face of this pale time,
Still, soft, familiar; shining bleak
On naked branches, sodden ground,
Yet shining--as if one had found
A smile upon a dead friend's cheek,
Or old friend, lost for years, had strange
In altered mien come sudden back,
Confronting us with our great lack--
Till loss seemed far less sad than change.
Yet though, alas! Hope did not see
This winter skeleton through full leaves,
Out of all bareness Faith perceives
Possible life in field and tree.
In bough and trunk the sap will move,
And the mould break o'er springing flowers;
Nature revives with all her powers,
But only nature;--never love.
So, listlessly with linkèd hands
Both Faith and Hope glide soft away;
While in long shadows, cool and gray,
The sun sets o'er the barren lands.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EFFE GXHG IJJI KLLK HMMH XNNX OEEO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (78%) |
Metre | 11010111 1111111 11110101 01110111 111101011 11010101 11111101 111110101 10111111 11010101 10011111 101111111 11011101 1101111 11100101 01011111 11010101 11010101 11011111 01010111 11111111 01011101 010111011 11111111 11011111 110100111 1111101 10010101 01010111 0011101010 100111010 11010101 11001111 11011101 1011101 011100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,307 |
Words | 242 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 33 Views
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"A Winter Walk" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7983/a-winter-walk>.
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