Analysis of The Beaks Of Eagles
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
An eagle's nest on the head of an old redwood on one of the
precipice-footed ridges
Above Ventana Creek, that jagged country which nothing but a
falling meteor will ever plow; no horseman
Will ever ride there, no hunter cross this ridge but the winged
ones, no one will steal the eggs from this fortress.
The she-eagle is old, her mate was shot long ago, she is now mated
with a son of hers.
When lightning blasted her nest she built it again on the same
tree, in the splinters of the thunderbolt.
The she-eagle is older than I; she was here when the fires of
eighty-five raged on these ridges,
She was lately fledged and dared not hunt ahead of them but ate
scorched meat. The world has changed in her time;
Humanity has multiplied, but not here; men's hopes and thoughts
and customs have changed, their powers are enlarged,
Their powers and their follies have become fantastic,
The unstable animal never has been changed so rapidly. The
motor and the plane and the great war have gone over him,
And Lenin has lived and Jehovah died: while the mother-eagle
Hunts her same hills, crying the same beautiful and lonely cry and
is never tired; dreams the same dreams,
And hears at night the rock-slides rattle and thunder in the throats
of these living mountains.
It is good for man
To try all changes, progress and corruption, powers, peace and
anguish, not to go down the dinosaur's way
Until all his capacities have been explored: and it is good for him
To know that his needs and nature are no more changed in fact
in ten thousand years than the beaks of eagles.
Scheme | ABACDEFGHIJBKLMNOAPQRSTUVRWPXY |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110110111111110 1001010 0111111011010 101001101110 11011110111101 11111011110 011011011110111110 10110 110100111101101 10011010 01101101111110101 10111110 111010111011111 110111001 01001101111101 01011110101 1100110101010 00101001011111000 10001001111101 0101100101101010 1011100110001010 110101011 011101110010001 111010 11111 11110100101010 101111011 011101001101011111 11111010111101 01101101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,542 |
Words | 286 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 30 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 41 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,239 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 284 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 1:26 min read
- 232 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Beaks Of Eagles" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32861/the-beaks-of-eagles>.
Discuss this Robinson Jeffers poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In