Analysis of A Hand-Mirror
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)
Outside fair costume--within ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eye--no more a sonorous voice or springy step;
Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step,
A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,
Words babble, hearing and touch callous,
No brain, no heart left--no magnetism of sex; 10
Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,
Such a result so soon--and from such a beginning!
Scheme | ABCCDEFEEEEG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011111111111 11101011001 1101011101001111 1111111 01111111 110011101001 101010110010 1100101001 110100110 11111110011 1111011011111 1001110110010 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 697 |
Words | 106 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 12 |
Lines Amount | 12 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 501 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 124 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 22, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 205 Views
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"A Hand-Mirror" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37936/a-hand-mirror>.
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