Analysis of Sonnets 12: Cherish You Then The Hope I Shall Forget

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



Cherish you then the hope I shall forget
At length, my lord, Pieria?—put away
For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay
These mortal bones against my body set,
For all the puny fever and frail sweat
Of human love,—renounce for these, I say,
The Singing Mountain's memory, and betray
The silent lyre that hangs upon me yet?
Ah, but indeed, some day shall you awake,
Rather, from dreams of me, that at your side
So many nights, a lover and a bride,
But stern in my soul's chastity, have lain,
To walk the world forever for my sake,
And in each chamber find me gone again!


Scheme ABBAABBACDDECF
Poetic Form
Metre 1011011101 11111101 1111011111 1101011101 1101010011 1101011111 01010100001 0101110111 1101111101 1011111111 1101010001 1101110011 1101010111 0011011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 571
Words 112
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 440
Words per stanza (avg) 108
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
122

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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