Analysis of Pauline Barrett
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon's knife!
And almost a year to creep back into strength,
Till the dawn of our wedding decennial
Found me my seeming self again.
We walked the forest together,
By a path of soundless moss and turf.
But I could not look in your eyes,
And you could not look in my eyes,
For such sorrow was ours -- the beginning of gray in your hair,
And I but a shell of myself.
And what did we talk of? -- sky and water,
Anything, 'most, to hide our thoughts.
And then your gift of wild roses,
Set on the table to grace our dinner.
Poor heart, how bravely you struggled
To imagine and live a remembered rapture!
Then my spirit drooped as the night came on,
And you left me alone in my room for a while,
As you did when I was a bride, poor heart.
And I looked in the mirror and something said:
"One should be all dead when one is half-dead --
Nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love."
And I did it looking there in the mirror --
Dear, have you ever understood?
Scheme | ABCDEFGGHIEJKELEMNOPPQER |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011010100101 0101111011 101110100100 11110101 11010010 10111101 11111011 01111011 1110110001011011 0110111 0111111010 10111101 01111110 11010111010 11110110 101001001010 1110110111 011101011101 1111110111 01100100101 1111111111 1101111011 01111010010 1111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 971 |
Words | 200 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 24 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 750 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 197 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 108 Views
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