Analysis of The Meeting
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
After so long an absence
At last we meet agin:
Does the meeting give us pleasure,
Or does it give us pain?
The tree of life has been shaken,
And but few of us linger now,
Like the prophets two or three berries
In the top of the uppermost bough.
We cordially greet each other
In the old, familiar tone;
And we think, though we do not say it,
How old and gray he is grown!
We speak of a Merry Christmas
And many a Happy New Year;
But each in his heart is thinking
Of those that are not here.
We speak of friends and their fortunes,
And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living,
And the living alone seem dead.
And at last we hardly distinguish
Between the ghosts and the guests;
And a mist and shadow of sadness
Steals over our merriest jests.
Scheme | XXAX XBXB ACXC DXEX XFEF XGDG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (67%) |
Metre | 1011110 111101 10101110 111111 01111110 01111101 101011110 00110101 11001110 0010101 011111111 1101111 11101010 01001011 11011110 111111 11110110 0111101 10101110 00100111 011110010 0101001 00101110 1101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 767 |
Words | 153 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 98 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 160 Views
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"The Meeting" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18888/the-meeting>.
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