Analysis of The House of Clay
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1826 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) – 1887 (Shortlands, London)
THERE was a house, a house of clay,
Wherein the inmate sat all day,
Merry and poor;
For Hope sat with her, heart to heart,
Fond and kind, fond and kind,
Vowing he never would depart, --
Till all at once he changed his mind:
"Sweetheart, good by!" He slipped away
And shut the door.
But Love came past, and, looking in,
With smile that pierced like sunbeam thin
Through wall, roof, floor,
Stood in the midst of that poor room,
Grand and fair, grand and fair,
Making a glory out of gloom: --
Till at the window mocked cruel Care:
Love sighed; "All lose, and nothing win?" --
He shut the door.
Then o'er the close-barred house of clay
Kind clematis and woodbine gay
Crept more and more;
And bees hummed merrily outside,
Loud and strong, loud and strong,
The inner silentness to hide,
The patient silence all day long;
Till evening touched with finger gray
The bolted door.
Most like, the next step passing by
Will be the Angel's, whose calm eye
Marks rich, marks poor:
Who, fearing not, at any gate
Stands and calls, stands and calls;
At which the inmate opens straight, --
Whom, ere the crumbling clay-house falls,
He takes in kind arms silently,
And shuts the door.
Scheme | AABCDCDAEFFEGHGHFEAAEIJIJAEKKBLMLMNE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111 0101111 1001 11110111 101101 10110101 11111111 1111101 0101 11110100 1111111 1111 10011111 101101 10010111 110101101 11110101 1101 110011111 1100011 1101 01110011 101101 010111 01010111 11011101 0101 11011101 1101111 1111 11011101 101101 1101101 110100111 11011100 0101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,198 |
Words | 217 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 36 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 888 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 213 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 113 Views
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