Analysis of The Blossom
John Donne 1572 (London) – 1631 (London)
LITTLE think'st thou, poor flower,
Whom I've watch'd six or seven days,
And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour
Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise,
And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough,
Little think'st thou,
That it will freeze anon, and that I shall
To-morrow find thee fallen, or not at all.
Little think'st thou, poor heart,
That labourest yet to nestle thee,
And think'st by hovering here to get a part
In a forbidden or forbidding tree,
And hopest her stiffness by long siege to bow,
Little think'st thou
That thou to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake,
Must with the sun and me a journey take.
But thou, which lovest to be
Subtle to plague thyself, wilt say,
Alas ! if you must go, what's that to me?
Here lies my business, and here I will stay
You go to friends, whose love and means present
Various content
To your eyes, ears, and taste, and every part ;
If then your body go, what need your heart?
Well then, stay here ; but know,
When thou hast stay'd and done thy most,
A naked thinking heart, that makes no show,
Is to a woman but a kind of ghost.
How shall she know my heart ; or having none,
Know thee for one?
Practice may make her know some other part ;
But take my word, she doth not know a heart.
Meet me in London, then,
Twenty days hence, and thou shalt see
Me fresher and more fat, by being with men,
Than if I had stay'd still with her and thee.
For God's sake, if you can, be you so too ;
I will give you
There to another friend, whom we shall find
As glad to have my body as my mind.
Scheme | ababcCxx dedecCff egegxxdd hihijjdd kekellmm |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (28%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 10111110 11111101 011101110010 1111111111 0111010111 10111 111110111 11011101111 1011111 1111101 011110011101 0010010101 0101011111 10111 1111010111 1101010101 111111 1011111 0111111111 1111001111 1111110110 10010 11110101001 1111011111 111111 11110111 0101011111 1101010111 1111111101 1111 1011011101 1111111101 110101 10110111 11001111011 1111111001 1111111111 1111 1101011111 1111110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,498 |
Words | 300 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 231 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 61 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 101 Views
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"The Blossom" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/22586/the-blossom>.
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