Analysis of The Splendor Of The Days

Jean Blewett 1862 (Janet McKishnie Scotia, Kent County, Ontario) – 1934 (Chatham)



Sweet and shrill the crickets hiding in the grasses brown and lean
Pipe their gladness-sweeter, shriller-one would think the world was green.
O the haze is on the hilltops, and the haze is on the lake!
See it fleeing through the valley with the bold wind in its wake!
Mark the warm October haze!
Mark the splendor of the days!
And the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!

See the bare hills turn their furrows to the shine and to the glow;
If you listen you can hear it, hear a murmur soft and low-
'We are naked,' so the fields say, 'stripped of all our golden dress.'
'Heed it not,' October answers, 'for I love ye none the less.
Share my beauty and my cheer
While we rest together here,
In these sun-filled days of languor, in these late days of the year.'

All the splendor of the summer, all the springtime's light and grace,
All the riches of the harvest, crown her head and light her face;
And the wind goes sighing, sighing, as if loath to let her pass,
While the crickets sing exultant in the lean and withered grass.
O the warm October haze!
O the splendor of the days!
O the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!


Scheme AABBCCC DDEEFXF GGHHCCC
Poetic Form
Metre 101010100010101 1111011110111 10111010011101 111010101011011 1010101 1010101 001001010101101 10111111010101 111011111010101 1110101111110101 111010101111101 1110011 1110101 01111110111101 10101010101101 101010101010101 001110101111101 101010100010101 1010101 1010101 101001010101101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,149
Words 226
Sentences 14
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7
Lines Amount 21
Letters per line (avg) 43
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 300
Words per stanza (avg) 73
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:06 min read
50

Jean Blewett

Jean McKishnie Blewett (4 November 1862 – 19 August 1934) was a Canadian journalist, author and poet. Blewett was born Janet McKinshie in Scotia, Kent County, Ontario in 1862 to Scottish immigrants (some sources say 1872). She attended St. Thomas Collegiate and in 1879 married Bassett Blewett and published her first novel, Out of the Depths. In 1896, she won a $600 prize from the Chicago Times-Herald for her poem "Spring". Blewett was a regular contributor to The Globe, a Toronto newspaper and in 1898 became editor of its Homemakers Department. In 1919, assisted by the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, she published a booklet titled Heart Stories to benefit war charities. During this time she regularly lectured on topics such as temperance and suffragism. She used the pseudonym Katherine Kent for some of her writing. In 1925 Blewett was compelled by ill-health to retire her editorship. For two years she lived with a daughter in Lethbridge, Alberta, before returning to Toronto in 1927. She died in 1934 in Chatham, Ontario. After her death, fellow female journalist Bride Broder wrote in tribute: There is a simplicity about Mrs. Blewett's prose and verse that has made a wide appeal, and her gay-hearted attitude to life, the humorous twists she gave to little things, made her very welcome as a speaker at women's gatherings. In all her writings she touched on the things that appeal to women everywhere and, in doing so, won the admiration of men readers also. Her brother, Archie P. McKishnie, was also a noted writer.  more…

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