Analysis of The Old Apple-Woman
Christopher Pearse Cranch 1813 (Columbia) – 1892 (Massachusetts)
A Broadway Lyric
SHE sits by the side of a turbulent stream
That rushes and rolls forever
Up and down like a weary dream
In the trance of a burning fever.
Up and down through the long Broadway
It flows with its tiresome paces —
Down and up through the noisy day,
A river of feet and of faces.
Seldom a drop of that river's spray
Touches her withered features;
Yet still she sits there day by day
In the throng of her fellow-creatures.
Apples and cakes and candy to sell,
Daily before her lying.
The ragged newsboys know her well —
The rich never think of buying.
Year in, year out, in her dingy shawl
The wind and the rain she weathers,
Patient and mute at her little stall;
But few are the coppers she gathers.
Still eddies the crowd intent on gain.
Each for himself is striving
With selfish heart and seething brain —
An endless hurry and driving.
The loud carts rattle in thunder and dust;
Gay Fashion sweeps by in its coaches.
With a vacant stare she mumbles her crust,
She is past complaints and reproaches.
Still new faces and still new feet —
The same yet changing forever;
They jostle along through the weary street,
The waves of the human river.
Withered and dry like a leafless bush
That clings to the bank of a torrent,
Year in, year out, in the whirl and the rush,
She sits, of the city's current.
The shrubs of the garden will blossom again
Though far from the flowing river;
But the spring returns to her in vain —
Its bloom has nothing to give her.
Yet in her heart there buds the hope
Of a Father's love and pity;
For her the clouded skies shall ope,
And the gates of a heavenly city.
Scheme | ABCBCDEDFDGDGHIHIJGJGKIKILELEMCMCNOPOQCKCRSRS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0110 11101101001 11001010 10110101 001101010 1011011 111110010 10110101 010110110 100111101 1001010 11111111 001101010 100101011 1001010 0101101 01101110 101100101 01001110 100110101 111010110 110010111 1101110 11010101 11010010 0111001001 110110110 1010111001 1110101 11100111 01110010 1100110101 01101010 100110101 111011010 1011001001 11101010 01101011001 11101010 101011001 11110110 10011101 10101010 10010111 0011010010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,574 |
Words | 307 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 45 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,254 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 305 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 26, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 49 Views
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"The Old Apple-Woman" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42740/the-old-apple-woman>.
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