Analysis of A Secret
John Charles McNeill 1874 – 1907
A little baby went to sleep
One night in his white bed,
And the moon came by to take a peep
At the little baby head.
A wind, as wandering winds will do,
Brought to the baby there
Sweet smells from some quaint flower that grew
Out on some hill somewhere.
And wind and flower and pale moonbeam
About the baby's bed
Stirred and woke the funniest dream
In the little sleepy head.
He thought he was all sorts of things
From a lion to a cat;
Sometimes he thought he flew on wings,
Or fell and fell, so that
When morning broke he was right glad
But much surprised to see
Himself a soft, pink little lad
Just like he used to be.
I would not give this story fame
If there were room to doubt it,
But when he learned to talk, he came
And told me all about it.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EBEB FGFG HIHI JKJK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 01010111 110111 001111101 1010101 011100111 110101 111111011 11111 01010011 010101 10101001 0010101 11111111 1010101 01111111 110111 11011111 110111 01011101 111111 11111101 1101111 11111111 0111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 740 |
Words | 157 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 97 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 4 Views
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"A Secret" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/55848/a-secret>.
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