Analysis of Friends By A Thread
William A. Tatum 1953 (Washington, D. C.)
Friends By A Thread
Up late at my desk
buried deep in a book,
when a caller dropped in
for perhaps a close look,
hanging mid-air
on the end of a thread
was a curious spider
in front of my head.
I was keenly amused
as he stayed in suspension,
this eight-legged creature
who got my attention.
The floating arachnid
who saw me below
felt the need to come down
just to say his "Hello".
This meeting became
an ongoing affair
with a nightly descending
from high in the air,
but our ritual came
to an unforeseen end
by the sudden departure
of my little friend.
Now I miss staying up
for my merry all-nighter
to be entertained
by that dangling spider,
as one night I discovered
while searching up high,
my friend went away
without saying "Goodbye".
Scheme | A XBXB CADA XEDE XFXF GCXC GHDH XDXD XIXI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101 11111 101001 101010 101011 1011 101101 1010010 01111 111001 1110010 111010 111010 010010 11101 101111 111101 11001 11001 1010010 11001 1101001 11011 1010010 11101 111101 1110110 1101 1110010 1111010 11011 11101 01101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 789 |
Words | 166 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 18 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 65 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 15 |
About this poem
This poem is about a resident spider I discovered dangling over my head while at my desk one night in my home. It became a nightly affair until the spider vanished.
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