Analysis of Birchbrook Mill
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)
A NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs
Beneath its leaning trees;
That low, soft ripple is its own,
That dull roar is the sea's.
Of human signs it sees alone
The distant church spire's tip,
And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray,
The white sail of a ship.
No more a toiler at the wheel,
It wanders at its will;
Nor dam nor pond is left to tell
Where once was Birchbrook mill.
The timbers of that mill have fed
Long since a farmer's fires;
His doorsteps are the stones that ground
The harvest of his sires.
Man trespassed here; but Nature lost
No right of her domain;
She waited, and she brought the old
Wild beauty back again.
By day the sunlight through the leaves
Falls on its moist, green sod,
And wakes the violet bloom of spring
And autumn's golden-rod.
Its birches whisper to the wind,
The swallow dips her wings
In the cool spray, and on its banks
The gray song-sparrow sings.
But from it, when the dark night falls,
The school-girl shrinks with dread;
The farmer, home-bound from his fields,
Goes by with quickened tread.
They dare not pause to hear the grind
Of shadowy stone on stone;
The plashing of a water-wheel
Where wheel there now is none.
Has not a cry of pain been heard
Above the clattering mill?
The pawing of an unseen horse,
Who waits his mistress still?
Yet never to the listener's eye
Has sight confirmed the sound;
A wavering birch line marks alone
The vacant pasture ground.
No ghostly arms fling up to heaven
The agony of prayer;
No spectral steed impatient shakes
His white mane on the air.
The meaning of that common dread
No tongue has fitly told;
The secret of the dark surmise
The brook and birches hold.
What nameless horror of the past
Broods here forevermore?
What ghost his unforgiven sin
Is grinding o'er and o'er?
Does, then, immortal memory play
The actor's tragic part,
Rehearsals of a mortal life
And unveiled human heart?
God's pity spare a guilty soul
That drama of its ill,
And let the scenic curtain fall
On Birchbrook's haunted mill
Scheme | XABA BCDC EFXF GXHX XXIX XJXJ KLXL XGXG KBEM XFXF XHBH MNXN GIXI XDXX DOXO XFXF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (81%) |
Metre | 011011 011101 11110111 111101 11011101 010111 01110111 011101 1101101 110111 11111111 11111 01011111 1101010 1110111 010111 1111101 111001 11001101 110101 1101101 111111 010100111 010101 1110101 010101 00110111 011101 11110111 011111 01011111 111101 11111101 1100111 0110101 111111 11011111 0101001 01011011 111101 1101011 110101 010011101 010101 110111110 010011 1110101 111101 01011101 11111 01010101 01011 11010101 111 1110101 11010010 110101001 010101 01010101 001101 11010101 110111 01010101 11101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,920 |
Words | 360 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 16 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 97 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:51 min read
- 97 Views
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"Birchbrook Mill" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22862/birchbrook-mill>.
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