Analysis of The Gum-Gatherer
Robert Frost 1874 (San Francisco) – 1963 (Boston)
There overtook me and drew me in
To his down-hill, early-morning stride,
And set me five miles on my road
Better than if he had had me ride,
A man with a swinging bag for'load
And half the bag wound round his hand.
We talked like barking above the din
Of water we walked along beside.
And for my telling him where I'd been
And where I lived in mountain land
To be coming home the way I was,
He told me a little about himself.
He came from higher up in the pass
Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks
Is blocks split off the mountain mass --
And hop. eless grist enough it looks
Ever to grind to soil for grass.
(The way it is will do for moss.)
There he had built his stolen shack.
It had to be a stolen shack
Because of the fears of fire and logs
That trouble the sleep of lumber folk:
Visions of half the world burned black
And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.
We know who when they come to town
Bring berries under the wagon seat,
Or a basket of eggs between their feet;
What this man brought in a cotton sack
Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce.
He showed me lumps of the scented stuff
Like uncut jewels, dull and rough
It comes to market golden brown;
But turns to pink between the teeth.
I told him this is a pleasant life
To set your breast to the bark of trees
That all your days are dim beneath,
And reaching up with a little knife,
To loose the resin and take it down
And bring it to market when you please
Scheme | ABCBCDABADEFGHGHGIJJKLJLMNNJOPPMQRSQRMS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110110 111110101 01111111 101111111 011010111 01011111 111100101 110110101 011101111 01110101 111010111 1110100101 111101001 1011010101 11110101 01110111 10111111 01111111 11111101 11110101 0110111001 110011101 10110111 001101001 11111111 110100101 1010110111 111100101 110110101 111110101 1110101 11110101 11110101 111110101 111110111 11111101 010110101 110100111 011110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,396 |
Words | 289 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 39 |
Lines Amount | 39 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,110 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 286 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 29, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 149 Views
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