Analysis of The Eye

Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)



The Atlantic is a stormy moat; and the Mediterranean,
The blue pool in the old garden,
More than five thousand years has drunk sacrifice
Of ships and blood, and shines in the sun; but here the Pacific--
Our ships, planes, wars are perfectly irrelevant.
Neither our present blood-feud with the brave dwarfs
Nor any future world-quarrel of westering
And eastering man, the bloody migrations, greed of power, clash of
     faiths--
Is a speck of dust on the great scale-pan.
Here from this mountain shore, headland beyond stormy headland
     plunging like dolphins through the blue sea-smoke
Into pale sea--look west at the hill of water: it is half the
     planet:
     this dome, this half-globe, this bulging
Eyeball of water, arched over to Asia,
Australia and white Antartica: those are the eyelids that never
     close;
     this is the staring unsleeping
Eye of the earth; and what it watches is not our wars.


Scheme AABCDECFGHDIJKLJMNCO
Poetic Form Tetractys  (30%)
Metre 0010101010000100 01100110 1111011110 110101001110010 1011111000100 101010111011 1101011011 011010010111011 1 1011110111 111101101101 1011010111 0111111011101110 10 11111110 1110110110 0100111101110 1 110101 11010111011101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 905
Words 152
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 20
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 703
Words per stanza (avg) 150
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 31, 2023

45 sec read
128

Robinson Jeffers

John Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. more…

All Robinson Jeffers poems | Robinson Jeffers Books

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