Analysis of Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
Elinor Wylie 1885 (Somerville) – 1928
For this you’ve striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.
For this, you’ve wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandered naked
Among trysted swords.
There’s a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:
Your body’s too ragged
To cover your bones.
The wind scatters
Tears upon dust;
Your soul’s in tatters
Where the spears thrust.
Your race is ended—
See, it is run:
Nothing is mended
Under the sun.
Straight as an arrow
You fall to a sleep
Not too narrow
And not too deep.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD XECE AFAF XGCG EHXH CAXA IJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 11110 1011 11110 10101 11110 1111 1010 10111 1111 1011 01010 0111 101010 0101 10110 0111 0111 1011 11110 11011 011 1011 11010 1011 11110 1111 10110 1001 11110 11101 1110 0111 |
Closest metre | Iambic dimeter |
Characters | 685 |
Words | 115 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 16 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 62 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 14 |
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"Fire and Sleet and Candlelight" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/54180/fire-and-sleet-and-candlelight>.
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