Analysis of When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins
Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)
When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream,
And out of all our burning their remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream,
This be our solace: that it was not said
When we were young and warm and in our prime,
Upon our couch we lay as lie the dead,
Sleeping away the unreturning time.
O sweet, O heavy-lidded, O my love,
When morning strikes her spear upon the land,
And we must rise and arm us and reprove
The insolent daylight with a steady hand,
Be not discountenanced if the knowing know
We rose from rapture but an hour ago.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEFGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Shakespearean sonnet (86%) |
Metre | 1111010101 1101010101 01111010101 11111011001 11101011111 11010100101 01101111101 1001011 111101111 1101010101 011101101 0100110101 11110101 11110111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 568 |
Words | 113 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 449 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 111 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 21, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 357 Views
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"When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9499/when-we-are-old-and-these-rejoicing-veins>.
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