Analysis of Her Thoughts And His

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky,
A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye.
The gleam on the waves and the light on the land,
A thrill in my heart,--and--my sweetheart's hand.

She turned from the sea with a woman's grace,
And the light fell soft on her upturned face,
And I thought of the flood-tide of infinite bliss
That would flow to my heart from a single kiss.

But my sweetheart was shy, so I dared not ask
For the boon, so bravely I wore the mask.
But into her face there came a flame:--
I wonder could she have been thinking the same?


Scheme AABB CCDD EEFF
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 01101001101 0110110111 01101001101 010110111 1110110101 001111011 011101111001 11111110101 1111111111 1011101101 101011101 11011111001
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 554
Words 115
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 141
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 08, 2023

35 sec read
98

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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