Analysis of To O.E.A.
Claude McKay 1889 (Clarendon Parish) – 1948 (Chicago)
Your voice is the color of a robin's breast,
And there's a sweet sob in it like rain--still rain in the night.
Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest,
The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange delight
Like the words, wet with music, that well from your trembling throat.
I'm afraid of your eyes, they're so bold,
Searching me through, reading my thoughts, shining like gold.
But sometimes they are gentle and soft like the dew on the lips of the eucharis
Before the sun comes warm with his lover's kiss.
You are sea-foam, pure with the star's loveliness,
Not mortal, a flower, a fairy, too fair for the beauty-shorn earth.
All wonderful things, all beautiful things, gave of their wealth to your birth.
Oh I love you so much, not recking of passion, that I feel it is wrong!
But men will love you, flower, fairy, non-mortal spirit burdened with flesh,
Forever, life-long.
Scheme | ABABCDDEEEFFGHG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101010101 01011011111001 0101101011111 0111011111101 101111011111001 101111111 101110111011 101111001101101101 01011111101 111111011 11001001011101011 11001110011111111 11111111110111111 111111010110101011 01011 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 898 |
Words | 162 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 15 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 47 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 699 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 160 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 170 Views
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"To O.E.A." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6907/to-o.e.a.>.
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