Analysis of Edwin Booth
Vachel Lindsay 1879 (Springfield) – 1931 (Springfield)
An old actor at the Player’s Club told me that Edwin Booth
first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California.
There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided
with crude assembly rooms for strolling players.
The youth played in the blear hotel.
The rafters gleamed with glories strange.
And winds of mourning Elsinore
Howling at chance and fate and change;
Voices of old Europe’s dead
Disturbed the new-built cattle-shed,
The street, the high and solemn range.
The while the coyote barked afar
All shadowy was the battlement.
The ranch-boys huddled and grew pale,
Youths who had come on riot bent.
Forgot were pranks well-planned to sting.
Behold there rose a ghostly king,
And veils of smoking Hell were rent.
When Edwin Booth played Hamlet, then
The camp-drab’s tears could not but flow.
Then Romance lived and breathed and burned.
She felt the frail queen-mother’s woe,
Thrilled for Ophelia, fond and blind,
And Hamlet, cruel, yet so kind,
And moaned, his proud words hurt her so.
A haunted place, though new and harsh!
The Indian and the Chinaman
And Mexican were fain to learn
What had subdued the Saxon clan.
Why did they mumble, brood, and stare
When the court-players curtsied fair
And the Gonzago scene began?
And ah, the duel scene at last!
They cheered their prince with stamping feet.
A death-fight in a palace! Yea,
With velvet hangings incomplete,
A pasteboard throne, a pasteboard crown,
And yet a monarch tumbled down,
A brave lad fought in splendor meet.
Was it a palace or a barn?
Immortal as the gods he flamed.
There in his last great hour of rage
His foil avenged a mother shamed.
In duty stern, in purpose deep
He drove that king to his black sleep
And died, all godlike and untamed.
I was not born in that far day.
I hear the tale from heads grown white.
And then I walk that earlier street,
The mining camp at candle-light.
I meet him wrapped in musings fine
Upon some whispering silvery line
He yet resolves to speak aright.
Scheme | XABX XCXCDDC XXXEFFE XGXGHHG XAXIJJI XKLKMMK XNXNOOB LPKPQQB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111010101111101 10100101010010 10110010010010 11010111010 01100101 01011101 0111010 10110101 101111 01011101 01010101 010010101 110010100 01110011 11111101 01011111 01110101 01110101 11011101 01111111 10110101 11011101 11010101 01010111 01111101 01011101 0100001 01000111 11010101 11110101 1011011 001101 01010111 11111101 01100101 11010001 011011 0101101 01110101 11010101 01010111 101111011 11010101 01010101 11111111 011101 11110111 11011111 011111001 01011101 11110101 0111001001 1101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,936 |
Words | 345 |
Sentences | 33 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 53 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 194 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:43 min read
- 51 Views
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"Edwin Booth" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37278/edwin-booth>.
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