Analysis of From A Full Moon In March
UNDER the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
i{Hysterica passio} dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy -- but I name no more --
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
Scheme | ABACDEFGHIJKJLMNBNONCPPQRQSQSTTUPVPUWUWXYED |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10010100101 0101100111 0101111111 1001010111 11011111001 11110111 10111101 110101101 0101010101 01001010101 0100110101 0111010111 1100110100 1111110101 11010101001 1110010111 11010100101 1111110101 1101010111 111110111001 11111101 11101111101 0101011101011 1101110101 1110101111 11110100101 111011101 1001110111 1101010101 1111111111 10111100101 011111011 110101011 111101101 110110101 11101101 00101110 1101100011 1101110111 11011011111 110111010 11001111101 1101010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,833 |
Words | 334 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 43 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,451 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 333 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 1:42 min read
- 161 Views
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"From A Full Moon In March" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39334/from-a-full-moon-in-march>.
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