Analysis of The Cross of Snow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face -- the face of one long dead --
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changingscenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
Scheme | ABBAABBA CDECDE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Petrarchan sonnet |
Metre | 0011010101 0101011111 1111011111 0111010111 1011110111 10110011011 1101110111 01010111 1101000101 1101001101 0101110111 1101110111 10111101 010110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 682 |
Words | 132 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 236 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 58 |
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"The Cross of Snow" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18840/the-cross-of-snow>.
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