Analysis of To A Dead Friend
Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906
It is as if a silver chord
Were suddenly grown mute,
And life's song with its rhythm warred
Against a silver lute.
It is as if a silence fell
Where bides the garnered sheaf,
And voices murmuring, 'It is well,'
Are stifled by our grief.
It is as if the gloom of night
Had hid a summer's day,
And willows, sighing at their plight,
Bent low beside the way.
For he was part of all the best
That Nature loves and gives,
And ever more on Memory's breast
He lies and laughs and lives.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme Quatrain |
Metre | 11110101 010011 01111101 010101 11110101 110101 010100111 1101101 11110111 110101 0110111 110101 11111101 110101 0101111 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 470 |
Words | 97 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 92 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 29 sec read
- 124 Views
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"To A Dead Friend" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28973/to-a-dead-friend>.
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