Analysis of The Road Through Chaos
Alfred Noyes 1880 (Wolverhampton) – 1958 (Isle of Wight)
There is one road, one only, to the Light:
A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.
It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays
To hear, at last, the answer to his cry;
And mighty sages, groping through their maze
Of eager questions, hear a child reply.
_Truth? What is Truth?_ Come, look upon my tables.
Begin at your beginnings once again.
_Twice one is two!_ Though all the rest be fables,
Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.
For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact,
Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.
Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords,
Build to the Lord your temples and your song;
The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords
Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong.
Let harmonies of colour marry and follow
And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue;
And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow,
Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too.
Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you,
And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme;
Then shall the mob of the passions that would rend you
Crown you their Captain and march on in time.
So shall you repossess your struggling soul,
Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal.
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EXEX FF GHGH IJIJ JKJK LL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110101 0101110101 0111110011 01110011111 110111111 1111010111 0101010111 1101010101 11111101110 0111010101 11111101110 1111111111 1111110111 1001111111 1111110101 1101110011 0111010101 01001101101 11001110010 01010010101 0111111011010 111011101 11010101011 01110011101 110110101111 1111001101 1110111001 10110100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,298 |
Words | 243 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 4, 2 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 128 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 55 Views
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"The Road Through Chaos" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1206/the-road-through-chaos>.
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