Analysis of A Frostry Night

Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)



Mother: Alice, dear, what ails you,
Dazed and white and shaken?
Has the chill night numbed you?
Is it fright you have taken?

Alice: Mother I am very well,
I felt never better;
Mother, do not hold me so,
Let me write my letter.

Mother: Sweet, my dear, what ails you?

Alice: No, but I am well.
The night was cold and frosty,
There's no more to tell.

Mother: Ay, the night was frosty,
Coldly gaped the moon,
Yet the birds seemed twittering
Through green boughs of June.

Soft and thick the snow lay,
Stars danced in the sky.
Not all the lambs of May-day
Skip so bold and high.

Your feet were dancing, Alice,
Seemed to dance on air,
You looked a ghost or angel
In the starlight there.

Your eyes were frosted starlight,
Your heart, fire, and snow.
Who was it said 'I love you?'

Alice: Mother, let me go!


Scheme ABAB CDED A CFC FGHG IHIX XJXJ XEA E
Poetic Form
Metre 10101111 101010 101111 1111110 101011101 111010 1011111 111110 10111111 1011111 0111010 11111 10101110 10101 10111 11111 101011 11001 1101111 11101 1101010 11111 1101110 0011 110101 111001 1111111 1010111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 778
Words 155
Sentences 15
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3, 1
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 67
Words per stanza (avg) 17
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

46 sec read
84

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, scholar/translator/writer of antiquity specializing in Classical Greece and Rome, novelist and soldier in World War One. more…

All Robert Graves poems | Robert Graves Books

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