Analysis of To The Hummingbird

Jones Very 1813 (Salem) – 1880



I cannot heal thy green gold breast,
Where deep those cruel teeth have prest,
Nor bid thee raise thy ruffled crest,
And seek thy mate,
Who sits alone within thy nest,
Nor sees thy fate.

No more with him in summer hours
Thou'lt hum amid the leafy bowers,
Nor hover round the dewy flowers,
To feed thy young;
Nor seek, when evening darkly lowers,
Thy nest high hung.

No more thou'lt know a mother's care
Thy honied spoils at eve to share,
Nor teach thy tender brood to dare
With upward spring,
Their path through fields of sunny air,
On new fledged wing.

For thy return in vain shall wait
Thy tender young, thy fond fond mate,
Till night's last stars beam forth full late
On their sad eyes;
Unknown, alas! thy cruel fate,
Unheard thy cries!


Scheme AAABAB CCCDCD EEEFEF BBBGBG
Poetic Form Burns stanza 
Metre 11011111 11110111 11111101 0111 11010111 1111 111101010 110101010 110101010 1111 111101010 1111 11110101 1111111 11110111 1101 11111101 1111 11010111 11011111 11111111 1111 01011101 0111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 723
Words 139
Sentences 6
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 144
Words per stanza (avg) 34
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 23, 2023

42 sec read
108

Jones Very

Jones Very was an American poet, essayist, clergymen, and mystic associated with the American Transcendentalism movement. more…

All Jones Very poems | Jones Very Books

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