Analysis of All Souls
Edith Wharton 1862 (New York City) – 1937 (Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt)
A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope -
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.
And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
And now that they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: 'Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!'
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.
Till they say, as they hear us - poor dead, poor dead! -
'Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed -
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
Just a touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart -
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear, and the dead have sight.'
And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
'One more, one more, ere we go their way'?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.
And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . . .
Scheme | aabbaaAA ccddxxAa xaeeffAA aaggaaAa aahhaaAA iiaajjAa ffkkaaaj |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110011 01001101 11111101 1011100101 111010101 10100111101 1111010111 1011100111 111111001 11101111101 110101111 111001111101 1101101111 11100111111 10110101111 1011100111 0110111111 1111100101 110111111 010111101 10100101111 111110101 1111010111 1011100111 0111101001 11111011101 11110110111 0011011111 111110111 0111111011 10110101111 1011100111 11111111111 111011010111 1011010101 11001010101 101001001001 1011111101 1111010111 1011100111 011010101 110111101 1011100111 0111111101 0110111101 111111111 10110101111 1010111011 011111111 111110101 010111111 1111001101 11111111 1111111101 1111101101 00110101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,553 |
Words | 537 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 279 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 76 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 2:43 min read
- 228 Views
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"All Souls" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9069/all-souls>.
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