Analysis of The Lost Path
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
Alone they walked--their fingers knit together,
And swaying listlessly as might a swing
Wherein Dan Cupid dangled in the weather
Of some sun-flooded afternoon of Spring.
Within the clover-fields the tickled cricket
Laughed lightly as they loitered down the lane,
And from the covert of the hazel-thicket
The squirrel peeped and laughed at them again.
The bumble-bee that tipped the lily-vases
Along the road-side in the shadows dim,
Went following the blossoms of their faces
As though their sweets must needs be shared with him.
Between the pasture bars the wondering cattle
Stared wistfully, and from their mellow bells
Shook out a welcoming whose dreamy rattle
Fell swooningly away in faint farewells.
And though at last the gloom of night fell o'er them,
And folded all the landscape from their eyes,
They only know the dusky path before them
Was leading safely on to Paradise.
Scheme | ABAB XXXX CDCD EFEF GXGX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (60%) Tetractys (20%) Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 01111101010 0101001101 01110100010 111100111 01010101010 110111101 01010101010 0101011101 01011101010 010110011 11000101110 1111111111 010101010010 1100011101 11010011010 1101011 011101111101 010101111 1101011011 110101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 870 |
Words | 147 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 143 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 150 Views
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