Analysis of The White Lights
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869 – 1935
When in from Delos came the gold
That held the dream of Pericles,
When first Athenian ears were told
The tumult of Euripides,
When men met Aristophanes,
Who fledged them with immortal quills—
Here, where the time knew none of these,
There were some islands and some hills.
When Rome went ravening to see
The sons of mothers end their days,
When Flaccus bade Leuconoë
To banish her chaldean ways,
When first the pearled, alembic phrase
Of Maro into music ran—
Here there was neither blame nor praise
For Rome, or for the Mantuan.
When Avon, like a faery floor,
Lay freighted, for the eyes of One,
With galleons laden long before
By moonlit wharves in Avalon—
Here, where the white lights have begun
To seethe a way for something fair,
No prophet knew, from what was done,
That there was triumph in the air.
Scheme | ABABBBBB BBCBBCBC DCDCCECE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011101 110111 110100101 01011 1110100 11110101 11011111 10110011 111111 01110111 1111 110011 110111 11001101 11110111 111101 1101011 1110111 110010101 111010 11011101 11011101 11011111 11110001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 832 |
Words | 149 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 212 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 218 Views
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"The White Lights" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10077/the-white-lights>.
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