Analysis of The Water-Witch
Alice Guerin Crist 1876 (Clare Castle) – 1941 (Toowoomba)
The little creek went winding down
‘Twixt whispering reeds and small blue flowers,
Singing a pleasant summer song
Of holidays and playtime hours.
We reached it at the noonday hours,
Coming from the scrub-aisles dime and cool,
Laden with ferns and lilies white,
And rested by it’s deepest pool.
And while we watched with drowsy eyes
The shimmering sunlight on the plain,
The water-witch within the stream
Arose and stood between us twain.
She looked on me with scornful eye
And mocking smile that held no mirth;
She knew my simple soul was kin
To the brown, kindly, homely earth.
But she kissed Maye upon the brow,
As though to steal her soul away;
She kissed here on her Irish eyes,
Her faery eyes, now green, now grey.
And now she walks alone our girl,
Aloof from all life’s joys and pains;
The witch’s kiss is on her brow,
The dancing water in her veins.
Ah! For the hearts that cherish her,
That sigh and pine with secret pain
For her cool lips and smiling eyes;
For Maye will never love again—
Shallow and cold as water’s self!
And my warm heart that loves her well
Can only breathe a prayer to Heaven
To break the water witch’s spell.
Scheme | XAXA ABXB CDXD XEXE FGCG XHFH XDCX XIXI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (88%) |
Metre | 01011101 1100101110 10010101 1100110 11110110 101011101 10110101 01011101 01111101 01001101 01010101 01010111 11111101 01011111 11110111 10110101 11110101 11110101 11110101 0111111 011101101 01111101 0111101 01010001 11011100 11011101 10110101 11110101 10011101 01111101 110101110 1101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,130 |
Words | 211 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 48 Views
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"The Water-Witch" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1526/the-water-witch>.
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