Analysis of Mother

Katharine Lee Bates 1859 (Falmouth) – 1929 (Wellesley)



'MOTHER! Mother!' he called as he fell
In the horror there
Of a bursting shell
That strewed red flesh on the air.
Far away over sea and land:
The knitting dropt
From an old white hand,
And a heart for an instant stopt.
But it was Death, dark mother and wise,
All-tenderest,
Who kissed his eyes
And gathered him to her breast.


Scheme ABABCCCCDCDE
Poetic Form
Metre 101011111 00101 10101 1111101 10110101 0101 11111 00111101 111111001 11 1111 0101101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 322
Words 65
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 251
Words per stanza (avg) 62
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

19 sec read
107

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful Bates was born in Falmouth Massachusetts and lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton Massachusetts An historic plaque marks the site of her home The daughter of a Congregational pastor she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley While teaching there she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied She lived at Wellesley with Katharine Coman who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Comans death in 1915 It is debated if this relationship was an intimate lesbian relationship as different sources maintain or a platonic relationship called sometimes Boston marriages as the local historical society of her birthplace maintain more…

All Katharine Lee Bates poems | Katharine Lee Bates Books

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