Analysis of The Snow-Storm
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 (Boston) – 1882 (Concord)
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;
Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKCLKMJNOPNQMRSTUMV |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0111010101 01010101001 111010101 11010100010 010110101 010100101001 11111011 0101001001 0010010011 11011100 111011010 1011011 1111010101 11001011111 10010010111 1100110111 11010101 111101111 011101011 110111111 101010101 010010101 01110110001 11110101101 1101010101 1100110111 101101111 010100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,172 |
Words | 205 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 938 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 203 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 25, 2023
- 1:03 min read
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