Analysis of The Edge
Lola Ridge 1873 – 1941
I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me…
But there was time…
And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain,
staring into the abyss…
I do not know how long…
I could not count the hours, they ran so fast
Like little bare-foot urchins - shaking my hands away…
But I remember
Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein…
And a wind came out of the grass,
Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.
As the night grew
The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth
Fell in ashen folds about the hills,
Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them…
There must have been a spent moon,
For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver…
That too I remember…
And the tenderly rocking mountain
Silence
And beating stars…
Dawn
Lay like a waxen hand upon the world,
And folded hills
Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,
Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,
Flecked with sun,
Fine as a golden pollen -
It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.
I smelled the raw sweet essences of things,
And heard spiders in the leaves
And ticking of little feet,
As tiny creatures came out of their doors
To see God pouring light into his star…
… It seemed life held
No future and no past but this…
And I too got up stiffly from the earth,
And held my heart up like a cup…
Scheme | AXBCXXXDXXX XEFXXD DBXX XXFXABBX XXXXX XC EX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111100101111011 1111 01110010111010 1001001 111111 11110101111 1101110101101 11010 11010101101 00111101 101101000101 1011 01111100111 101010101 110101011011 1111011 101111010110 111010 001001010 10 0101 1 110110101 0101 101010101110101 101111010 111 1101010 1101111101 11011111 0110001 0101101 1101011111 1111010111 1111 11001111 0111110101 01111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,339 |
Words | 260 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 6, 4, 8, 5, 2, 2 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 149 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:18 min read
- 40 Views
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"The Edge" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25933/the-edge>.
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