Analysis of Children
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Come to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.
Ye open the eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.
In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn
And the first fall of the snow.
Ah! what would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood, --
That to the world are children;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.
Scheme | Abxb caca xdxd efef xxxx adxd Axxx cgxg xhxh |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (78%) |
Metre | 1111110 1111111 00101011 110101 11001010 110101 1111010 0011101 011101001 011011 101101110 0011101 11101111 1010011 111010011 110101 10111010 110111 11101010 1110011 1101110 111101 10100110 1100101 1111110 010011 101001110 011010 1111101 00101101 10111010 001111 111011010 1100111 1111010 010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,203 |
Words | 220 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 99 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 452 Views
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"Children" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18548/children>.
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