Analysis of To Our Mocking-Bird
Died of a cat, May, 1878.
Trillets of humor, -- shrewdest whistle-wit, --
Contralto cadences of grave desire
Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre
Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split
About the slim young widow who doth sit
And sing above, -- midnights of tone entire, --
Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire; --
Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite
Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave
And trickling down the beak, -- discourses brave
Of serious matter that no man may guess, --
Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress --
All these but now within the house we heard:
O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?
Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast
A tireless tooth for songsters: thus of late
Thou camest, Death, thou Cat! and leap'st my gate,
And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst passed
Within and snatched away, how fast, how fast,
My bird -- wit, songs, and all -- thy richest freight
Since that fell time when in some wink of fate
Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast
Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away,
And harried him with hope and horrid play --
Ay, him, the world's best wood-bird, wise with song --
Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong.
'Twas wrong! 'twas wrong! I care not, WRONG's the word --
To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-bird.
Nay, Bird; my grief gainsays the Lord's best right.
The Lord was fain, at some late festal time,
That Keats should set all Heaven's woods in rhyme,
And thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night,
Methinks I see thee, fresh from death's despite,
Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime,
O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme,
-- Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright
Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise,
Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats,
'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes,
And mark the music of thy wood-conceits,
And halfway pause on some large, courteous word,
And call thee "Brother", O thou heavenly Bird!
Scheme | A BCCBBCCXDDEEFF GHHGGHHGAAIIFF JKKJJKKJLXLEFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011 111010101 110011010 1111010010010 111101111 0101110111 0101111010 111111110 1111110100 1100110111 0101010101 11001011111 1101011101 1111010111 1111111101 11110111111 0100111111 1111101111 0111110111 0101011111 1111011101 1111101111 110110101 1111011101 0101110101 1101111111 1111111101 1111111101 111010110101 111110111 011111111 1111110101 0101111101 111111101 100111110 101010010101 11111011 1101010101 1110011101 1111101101 010101111 01111111001 01110111001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,034 |
Words | 362 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 14, 14, 14 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 388 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 90 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:50 min read
- 49 Views
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"To Our Mocking-Bird" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34817/to-our-mocking-bird>.
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