Analysis of Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him--

Emily Dickinson 1830 (Amherst) – 1886 (Amherst)



Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him--
Tell him the page I didn't write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.

Tell him just how the fingers hurried
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow-
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.

'Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him--No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it,
And then you and I were silenter.

'Tell him night finished before we finished
And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'
And you got sleepy and begged to be ended--
What could it hinder so, to say?
Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious
But if he ask where you are hid
Until to-morrow,--happy letter!
Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!'


Scheme XXXX XAXA BXXXAXXB XCXCXXBX
Poetic Form
Metre 1011101011 11011101 11110101 010100101 111101010 11110111 01111110110 11111111 111100110 111010101 1110101011 1111101101 11111111 11111101 111111111 0110101 1111001110 0011111 01110011110 11110111 111111110 11111111 011101010 1010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 922
Words 184
Sentences 11
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 30
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 178
Words per stanza (avg) 45
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 09, 2023

55 sec read
116

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. more…

All Emily Dickinson poems | Emily Dickinson Books

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    Who is the author of the renowned poem collection "Leaves of Grass"?
    A Walt Whitman
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