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 Views
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"I Shall Go Back" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9381/i-shall-go-back>.
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