Analysis of Tor House
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
If you should look for this place after a handful
of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast
cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers
had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten
thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth
of the Carmel
River-valley, these four will remain
In the change of names. You will know it by the wild
sea-fragrance of wind
Though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little;
You will know it by the valley inland that our sun
and our moon were born from
Before the poles changed; and Orion in December
Evenings was strung in the throat of the valley like
a lamp-lighted bridge.
Come in the morning you will see white gulls
Weaving a dance over blue water, the wane of the moon
Their dance-companion, a ghost walking
By daylight, but wider and whiter than any bird in
the world.
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not
dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.
Submitted by Holt
Scheme | XXXXXAXXXXXXXXXXBXXXXXXACXXXXXBC X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111001 11 0111101001 11111010101 1010 111110001110 1101011110110 101 11111111110 1111101100101 101 1101011010 0101001101101 1001 101011101 001111111101 11011 1010111101010 1111101011101 0101011 0101100100010 101100110101 01101 1001011111 10011011001101 110100110 1111001011010 01 111101111100 11011100101 1011 10110011 01011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,310 |
Words | 234 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 32, 1 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 491 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 116 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 1:10 min read
- 147 Views
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