3.2. First of all the researcher will consider the open class words in this poem.
Open words carry the majority of meaning in a language as compared to closed class (grammatical) words such as determiners (e.g. this, that, the) and prepositions (e.g. in, at, on).
Closed class words can be called as sentence 'connectors’ and they join together open class words in meaningful arrangements in sentences.
The poem consists mainly of noun, pronouns and verbs. A good number of adjectives are also used in this poem. The nouns are mostly concrete - that is, they refer to physical objects, but a few are abstract nouns as well like ‘thought, pleasure, mood, company, glee’.
3.3 This poem consists of four stanzas of six lines each. A six lines stanza is called Sestet.
There is a full stop at the end of the last line of every stanza of the whole poem. The poet has used commas, semi colons and colon to give pauses as the whole stanza is in the form of a single complete sentence having more than one sub ordinate clauses. There is foregrounding as the poet has not written the complete spelling of two words like ‘over’ is written as ‘o’er’ and ‘often’ as ‘oft’. Every line of the poem is started with the capital letter that is also an element of foregrounding. The rhyming scheme of the poem is as ‘ABAB CC’.
Name of the foot used in this poem is ‘iambic tetrameter as there are four feet in a line hence, the poem follows quatrain couplet rhyming scheme
3.4 Each stanza has six lines and the complete stanza is in the form of a complete but longer sentence. The poet has used commas, semi colon, colon and apostrophe to make it a long sentence. The full stop in the stanzas is at the end of every last line of each stanza
3.5 The poet has deviated from the normal norms of poetry. The poet has used double hyphen (-) in a single line in the third stanza.
The verb ‘gazed’ is also used twice with the addition of conjunction ‘and’ also. The hyphen (-) and the conjunctions (connectors) ‘and’ and ‘but’ are used together in the same sentence ‘I gazed - and gazed - but little thought’.
However , the researcher could not understand why the poet has used double hyphen with the addition of conjunction too in a single line. If the poet wanted to put emphasis on the continuity of his gaze for a long time he had used that verb ‘gazed and gazed’ twice with the conjunction ‘and’ but the use of hyphen here is the example of deviation on the poet’s part as it’s not common practice in poetry.