Andrew's Wiki
Winter Secret

Content

• The secret is: she’s dead, probably

Style

• Similar to Hopkins in creative word use, mobile meter
• Diabolical tone because the light tone (incl. silly rhymes) used for death
  • “it froze and blows and snows”
• Very cool: the ends of the lines have caesuras, not the middle:
  • “And you’re too curious: fie!
  • You want to hear it? well:
  • Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell.”
• It’s so mobile, crazy; she uses however many syllables she needs at the time, and yet it’s still in meter.
  • Rossetti: an example of just how flexible you can make “legitimate” meter

Quotes

• “Come bounding and surrounding me / Come buffeting, astounding me / Nipping and clipping thro’ my wraps and all”
  • As mobile and energetic and playful as “Goblin Market”