Analysis of Departure

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



It's little I care what path I take,
And where it leads it's little I care;
But out of this house, lest my heart break,
I must go, and off somewhere.

It's little I know what's in my heart,
What's in my mind it's little I know,
But there's that in me must up and start,
And it's little I care where my feet go.

I wish I could walk for a day and a night,
And find me at dawn in a desolate place
With never the rut of a road in sight,
Nor the roof of a house, nor the eyes of a face.

I wish I could walk till my blood should spout,
And drop me, never to stir again,
On a shore that is wide, for the tide is out,
And the weedy rocks are bare to the rain.

But dump or dock, where the path I take
Brings up, it's little enough I care:
And it's little I'd mind the fuss they'll make,
Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere.

'Is something the matter, dear,' she said,
'That you sit at your work so silently?'
'No, mother, no, 'twas a knot in my thread.
There goes the kettle, I'll make the tea.'


Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GXGX ABAB HIHI
Poetic Form Quatrain  (83%)
Metre 110111111 011111011 111111111 111011 110111011 101111011 111011101 0110111111 11111101001 01111001001 1100110101 101101101101 1111111111 011101101 10111110111 0010111101 111110111 111100111 0110110111 1010011 110010111 1111111100 1101101011 110101101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 968
Words 211
Sentences 9
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 30
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 120
Words per stanza (avg) 34
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

1:06 min read
113

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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