Analysis of The Revealer
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869 – 1935
He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion … And the men of the city said unto him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?—Judges, 14.
The palms of Mammon have disowned
The gift of our complacency;
The bells of ages have intoned
Again their rhythmic irony;
And from the shadow, suddenly,
’Mid echoes of decrepit rage,
The seer of our necessity
Confronts a Tyrian heritage.
Equipped with unobscured intent
He smiles with lions at the gate,
Acknowledging the compliment
Like one familiar with his fate;
The lions, having time to wait,
Perceive a small cloud in the skies,
Whereon they look, disconsolate,
With scared, reactionary eyes.
A shadow falls upon the land,—
They sniff, and they are like to roar;
For they will never understand
What they have never seen before.
They march in order to the door,
Not knowing the best thing to seek,
Nor caring if the gods restore
The lost composite of the Greek.
The shadow fades, the light arrives,
And ills that were concealed are seen;
The combs of long-defended hives
Now drip dishonored and unclean;
No Nazarite or Nazarene
Compels our questioning to prove
The difference that is between
Dead lions—or the sweet thereof.
But not for lions, live or dead,
Except as we are all as one,
Is he the world’s accredited
Revealer of what we have done;
What You and I and Anderson
Are still to do is his reward;
If we go back when he is gone—
There is an Angel with a Sword.
He cannot close again the doors
That now are shattered for our sake;
He cannot answer for the floors
We crowd on, or for walls that shake;
He cannot wholly undertake
The cure of our immunity;
He cannot hold the stars, or make
Of seven years a century.
So Time will give us what we earn
Who flaunt the handful for the whole,
And leave us all that we may learn
Who read the surface for the soul;
And we’ll be steering to the goal,
For we have said so to our sons:
When we who ride can pay the toll,
Time humors the far-seeing ones.
Down to our nose’s very end
We see, and are invincible,—
Too vigilant to comprehend
The scope of what we cannot sell;
But while we seem to know as well
As we know dollars, or our skins,
The Titan may not always tell
Just where the boundary begins.
Scheme | X ABABBXBX CDCDDEAE FGFGGHGH IJIJJXJX XKXKKLXL MNMNNBNB OPOPPQPQ RXRSSTST |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 110111011010001110111010001101000110101101111011001110101010 0111101 011100100 01110101 01110100 0101100 11010101 011100100 0101100 011101 11110101 01000100 11010111 01010111 01011001 1111 1101001 0110101 11011111 1111001 11110101 11010101 11001111 11010101 01010101 0110101 01100111 01110101 11010001 1111 011010011 01001101 1101011 11110111 01111111 11010100 111111 11010100 11111101 11111111 11110101 11010101 111101101 11010101 11111111 1101010 011100100 11010111 11010100 11111111 1101101 01111111 11010101 01110101 111111101 11111101 1101101 111010101 11010100 1100101 01111101 11111111 111101101 0101111 11010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,315 |
Words | 436 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 65 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 199 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 2:10 min read
- 42 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Revealer" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/10063/the-revealer>.
Discuss this Edwin Arlington Robinson poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In