Analysis of The Change

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



LOVE used to carry a bow, you know,
But now he carries a taper;
It is either a length of wax aglow,
Or a twist of lighted paper.
I pondered a little about the scamp,
And then I decided to follow
His wandering journey to field and camp,
Up hill, down dale or hollow.
I dogged the rollicking, gay, young blade
In every species of weather;
Till, leading me straight to the home of a maid
He left us there together.
And then I saw it, oh, sweet surprise,
The taper it set a-burning
The love-light brimming my lady's eyes,
And my heart with the fire of yearning.


Scheme ABABCACADBDBEFEF
Poetic Form
Metre 111100111 11110010 1110011101 10111010 1100100101 01110110 1100101101 1111110 110100111 010010110 11011101101 1111010 011111101 01011010 011101101 0111010110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 550
Words 110
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 428
Words per stanza (avg) 108
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
119

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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