Analysis of To write one song, I said
Philip Larkin 1922 (Coventry) – 1985 (Hull)
To write one song, I said,
As sad as the sad wind
That walks around my bed,
Having one simple fall
As a candle-flame swells, and is thinned,
As a curtain stirs by the wall
— For this I must visit the dead.
Headstone and wet cross,
Paths where the mourners tread,
A solitary bird,
These call up the shade of loss,
Shape word to word.
That stones would shine like gold
Above each sodden grave,
This, I had not foretold,
Nor the birds' clamour, nor
The image morning gave
Of more and ever more,
As some vast seven-piled wave,
Mane-flinging, manifold,
Streams at an endless shore.
Scheme | AXABXBACADCD EFEGFGFEG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111 111011 110111 101101 101011011 10101101 11111001 1011 110101 01001 1110111 1111 111111 011101 111101 10111 010101 110101 1111011 11010 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 558 |
Words | 107 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 9 |
Lines Amount | 21 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 223 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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"To write one song, I said" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/53613/to-write-one-song%2C-i-said>.
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