A Murmur in the Trees—to note— Literary Elements

The speaker is a young woman exploring the world, telling her story in a first-person point of view.

Common meter (iambic tetrameter alternating with quatrains) and a ballad meter

The “road” in the last line of stanza five is a metaphor for interpretation.

Alliteration is in stanza one, line four, "Hurrying home." The consonant "h" is repetitive.

The primary irony is that the speaker reveals the mystical events that happen at night, and yet she promises that it is a secret that no one is supposed to know except herself and the spirits.

Five-Stanza ballad

Set in an undisclosed location in the woods at night.

The tone is ambivalent.

The poem’s protagonist is the speaker. There is no antagonist.

There is a major conflict and the murmuring trees. The speaker says the trees hide something from her because they whisper in low tones.

The climax comes in stanza five when the narrator realizes that she has given secrets that she should safeguard about the magical world.

The brightening star foreshadows the speaker’s ability to interpret what she sees at night.

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The poem alludes to John Donne's "The Apparition," which accounts for the paranormal world.

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The trees are personified when they murmur.

There is an exaggeration in stanza four, line one, when the speaker says, "Of Robins in the Trundle bed." In reality, robins do not sleep on beds.

Onomatopoeia is in line two of the second stanza when the speaker says, "A Hubbub as of feet." The hubbub imitates the commotion sound of walking men.