Analysis of Vigil
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
Lived on one's back,
In the long hours of repose,
Life is a practical nightmare -
Hideous asleep or awake.
Shoulders and loins
Ache-- -!
Ache, and the mattress,
Run into boulders and hummocks,
Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes -
Tumbling, importunate, daft -
Ramble and roll, and the gas,
Screwed to its lowermost,
An inevitable atom of light,
Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper
Snores me to hate and despair.
All the old time
Surges malignant before me;
Old voices, old kisses, old songs
Blossom derisive about me;
While the new days
Pass me in endless procession:
A pageant of shadows
Silently, leeringly wending
On . . . and still on . . . still on!
Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly. A cinder
Falls, and the shadows
Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to me
Turns with a moan; and the snorer,
The drug like a rope at his throat,
Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse,
Noiseless and strange,
Her bull's eye half-lanterned in apron,
(Whispering me, 'Are ye no sleepin' yet?'),
Passes, list-slippered and peering,
Round . . . and is gone.
Sleep comes at last -
Sleep full of dreams and misgivings -
Broken with brutal and sordid
Voices and sounds that impose on me,
Ere I can wake to it,
The unnatural, intolerable day.
Scheme | XABC ACXAADXDXEB XFXFXGAHX XEAFBXXXGXHX XXXFXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111 00110101 1101001 10001101 1001 1 10010 1011001 1101101 10011 1001001 1111 1010001011 100110 1111001 1011 10010011 11011011 10010011 1011 11010010 01011 100110 101111 1001001 10010010 1001 110110101111 1101001 01101111 1110111011 101 01111010 100111111 1011010 1011 1111 11110010 10110010 100110111 111111 00100010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,229 |
Words | 222 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 11, 9, 12, 6 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 193 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:07 min read
- 78 Views
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"Vigil" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/40576/vigil>.
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