Analysis of Merlin
“Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see,
So far beyond the faint edge of the world?
D’ye look to see the lady Vivian,
Pursued by divers ominous vile demons
That have another king more fierce than ours?
Or think ye that if ye look far enough
And hard enough into the feathery west
Ye’ll have a glimmer of the Grail itself?
And if ye look for neither Grail nor lady,
What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?”
So Dagonet, whom Arthur made a knight
Because he loved him as he laughed at him,
Intoned his idle presence on a day
To Gawaine, who had thought himself alone,
Had there been in him thought of anything
Save what was murmured now in Camelot
Of Merlin’s hushed and all but unconfirmed
Appearance out of Brittany. It was heard
At first there was a ghost in Arthur’s palace,
But soon among the scullions and anon
Among the knights a firmer credit held
All tongues from uttering what all glances told—
Though not for long. Gawaine, this afternoon,
Fearing he might say more to Lancelot
Of Merlin’s rumor-laden resurrection
Than Lancelot would have an ear to cherish,
Had sauntered off with his imagination
To Merlin’s Rock, where now there was no Merlin
To meditate upon a whispering town
Below him in the silence.—Once he said
To Gawaine: “You are young; and that being so,
Behold the shining city of our dreams
And of our King.”—“Long live the King,” said Gawaine.—
“Long live the King,” said Merlin after him;
“Better for me that I shall not be King;
Wherefore I say again, Long live the King,
And add, God save him, also, and all kings—
All kings and queens. I speak in general.
Kings have I known that were but weary men
With no stout appetite for more than peace
That was not made for them.”—“Nor were they made
For kings,” Gawaine said, laughing.—“You are young,
Gawaine, and you may one day hold the world
Between your fingers, knowing not what it is
That you are holding. Better for you and me,
I think, that we shall not be kings.”
Gawaine,
Remembering Merlin’s words of long ago,
Frowned as he thought, and having frowned again,
He smiled and threw an acorn at a lizard:
“There’s more afoot and in the air to-day
Than what is good for Camelot. Merlin
May or may not know all, but he said well
To say to me that he would not be King.
Nor more would I be King.” Far down he gazed
On Camelot, until he made of it
A phantom town of many stillnesses,
Not reared for men to dwell in, or for kings
To reign in, without omens and obscure
Familiars to bring terror to their days;
For though a knight, and one as hard at arms
As any, save the fate-begotten few
That all acknowledged or in envy loathed,
He felt a foreign sort of creeping up
And down him, as of moist things in the dark,—
When Dagonet, coming on him unawares,
Presuming on his title of Sir Fool,
Addressed him and crooned on till he was done:
“What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?”
“Sir Dagonet, you best and wariest
Of all dishonest men, I look through Time,
For sight of what it is that is to be.
I look to see it, though I see it not.
I see a town down there that holds a king,
And over it I see a few small clouds—
Like feathers in the west, as you observe;
And I shall see no more this afternoon
Than what there is around us every day,
Unless you have a skill that I have not
To ferret the invisible for rats.”
“If you see what’s around us every day,
You need no other showing to go mad.
Remember that and take it home with you;
And say tonight, ‘I had it of a fool—
With no immediate obliquity
For this one or for that one, or for me.’”
Gawaine, having risen, eyed the fool curiously:
“I’ll not forget I had it of a knight,
Whose only folly is to fool himself;
And as for making other men to laugh,
And so forget their sins and selves a little,
There’s no great folly there. So keep it up,
As long as you’ve a legend or a song,
And have whatever sport of us you like
Till havoc is the word and we fall howling.
For I’ve a guess there may not be so loud
A sound of laughing here in Camelot
When Merlin goes again to his gay grave
In Brittany. To mention lesser terrors,
Men say his beard is gone.”
“Do men say that?”
A twitch of an impatient weariness
Played for a moment over the lean face
Of Dagonet, who reasoned inwardly:
“The friendly zeal of this inquiring knight
Will overtake his tact and leave it squealing,
One of these days.”—Gawaine looked hard at him:
Scheme | abcxdxxeaC fghxijxklcxxmjcxcnxxoxcgiipqrxxxbxap corkhnxixxapxxxsxtxxucC bxajixxmhjx hxsubaafexqtxxixjxdx xlxafig |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 1101011101 1111010100 01110100110 11010111110 1111111101 01010101001 1101010101 01111101110 11111111 11110101 0111111111 0111010101 111110101 111011110 111101010 110101101 01011100111 11110101010 11010101 0101010101 11110011101 11111101 101111110 1101010010 1101111110 111110010 11011111110 1100101001 0110010111 1111101101 01010101101 01101110111 1101110101 1011111111 111011101 0111110011 1101110100 1111101101 111101111 1111111011 111110111 101111101 01110101111 11110101101 11111111 1 01001011101 1111010101 11011101010 1101000111 111111010 1111111111 1111111111 1111111111 110011111 01011101 1111110111 1100110001 11110111 1101011111 1101010101 1101010101 1101011101 0111111001 11101101 0101110111 0110111111 11111111 111101 1101011111 1111111111 1111111111 1101111101 0101110111 1100011101 011111101 11110111001 0111011111 1100010011 11100111001 1111010111 0101011111 0101111101 1101001 1111111111 110101011000 1101111101 1101011101 0111010111 01011101010 1111011111 1111010101 011011111 11010101110 1101111111 011101010 1101011111 01001101010 111111 1111 0111010100 1101010011 11110100 01011101001 1101101110 111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,436 |
Words | 849 |
Sentences | 31 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 36, 23, 11, 20, 7 |
Lines Amount | 107 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 558 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 139 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 05, 2023
- 4:14 min read
- 153 Views
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"Merlin" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10001/merlin>.
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