Analysis of Eve- Song
Dame Mary Gilmore 1865 (Crookwell, New South Wales) – 1962 (Sydney, New South Wales)
I span and Eve span
A thread to bind the heart of man;
But the heart of man was a wandering thing
That came and went with little to bring:
Nothing he minded what we made,
As here he loitered, and there he stayed.
I span and Eve span
A thread to bind the heart of man;
But the more we span the more we found
It wasn't his heart but ours we bound.
For children gathered about our knees:
The thread was a chain that stole our ease.
And one of us learned in our children's eyes
That more than man was love and prize.
But deep in the heart of one of us lay
A root of loss and hidden dismay.
He said he was strong. He had no strength
But that which comes of breadth and length.
He said he was fond. But his fondness proved
The flame of an hour when he was moved.
He said he was true. His truth was but
A door that winds could open and shut.
And yet, and yet, as he came back,
Wandering in from the outward track,
We held our arms, and gave him our breast,
As a pillowing place for his head to rest.
I span and Eve span,
A thread to bind the heart of man!
Scheme | AAbbccAAddeeffgg hhiijj kkllAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011 01110111 10111101001 110111011 10110111 11110111 11011 01110111 101110111 1101111011 1101001101 0110111101 01111010101 11111101 1100111111 011101001 111111111 11111101 1111111101 0111101111 111111111 011111001 01011111 100010101 11101011101 101111111 11011 01110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,030 |
Words | 222 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 267 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 73 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 1:07 min read
- 292 Views
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"Eve- Song" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7428/eve--song>.
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