Analysis of I Shall Go Back

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



I shall go back again to the bleak shore
And build a little shanty on the sand
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed shall escape my door
But by a yard or two; and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand.
I shall be gone to what I understand,
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung.
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when I was young.


Scheme ABBAABBACDCDCD
Poetic Form
Metre 1111011011 0101010101 01011011 110110111 110111010 1101111101 111111101 01001110101 0111010011 0111010111 1111100101 0101010101 1111010101 0111101111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 555
Words 116
Sentences 5
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 436
Words per stanza (avg) 114
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

34 sec read
348

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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    I wandered lonely as a _______ that floats on high o'er vales and hills
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