Analysis of The Sad Mother

Gabriela Mistral 1889 (Vicuña) – 1957 (Hempstead)



Sleep, sleep, my beloved,
without worry, without fear,
although my soul does not sleep,
although I do not rest.

Sleep, sleep, and in the night
may your whispers be softer
than a leaf of grass,
or the silken fleece of lambs.

May my flesh slumber in you,
my worry, my trembling.
In you, may my eyes close
and my heart sleep.


Scheme XXAX XXXX XXXA
Poetic Form
Metre 11101 0110011 111111 11111 110001 1110110 10111 1010111 1111001 1101100 011111 0111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 319
Words 63
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 82
Words per stanza (avg) 20
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

18 sec read
170

Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. more…

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