Analysis of Ode to Salvador Dali
Federico García Lorca 1898 (Fuente Vaqueros) – 1936 (Alfacar)
A rose in the high garden you desire.
A wheel in the pure syntax of steel.
The mountain stripped bare of Impressionist fog,
The grays watching over the last balustrades.
The modern painters in their white ateliers
clip the square root's sterilized flower.
In the waters of the Seine a marble iceberg
chills the windows and scatters the ivy.
Man treads firmly on the cobbled streets.
Crystals hide from the magic of reflections.
The Government has closed the perfume stores.
The machine perpetuates its binary beat.
An absence of forests and screens and brows
roams across the roofs of the old houses.
The air polishes its prism on the sea
and the horizon rises like a great aqueduct.
Soldiers who know no wine and no penumbra
behead the sirens on the seas of lead.
Night, black statue of prudence, holds
the moon's round mirror in her hand.
A desire for forms and limits overwhelms us.
Here comes the man who sees with a yellow ruler.
Venus is a white still life
and the butterfly collectors run away.
Cadaqués, at the fulcrum of water and hill,
lifts flights of stairs and hides seashells.
Wooden flutes pacify the air.
An ancient woodland god gives the children fruit.
Her fishermen sleep dreamless on the sand.
On the high sea a rose is their compass.
The horizon, virgin of wounded handkerchiefs,
links the great crystals of fish and moon.
A hard diadem of white brigantines
encircles bitter foreheads and hair of sand.
The sirens convince, but they don't beguile,
and they come if we show a glass of fresh water.
Oh Salvador Dali, of the olive-colored voice!
I do not praise your halting adolescent brush
or your pigments that flirt with the pigment of your times,
but I laud your longing for eternity with limits.
Sanitary soul, you live upon new marble.
You run from the dark jungle of improbable forms.
Your fancy reaches only as far as your hands,
and you enjoy the sonnet of the sea in your window.
The world is dull penumbra and disorder
in the foreground where man is found.
But now the stars, concealing landscapes,
reveal the perfect schema of their courses.
The current of time pools and gains order
in the numbered forms of century after century.
And conquered Death takes refuge trembling
in the tight circle of the present instant.
When you take up your palette, a bullet hole in its wing,
you call on the light that brings the olive tree to life.
The broad light of Minerva, builder of scaffolds,
where there is no room for dream or its hazy flower.
You call on the old light that stays on the brow,
not descending to the mouth or the heart of man.
A light feared by the loving vines of Bacchus
and the chaotic force of curving water.
You do well when you post warning flags
along the dark limit that shines in the night.
As a painter, you refuse to have your forms softened
by the shifting cotton of an unexpected cloud.
The fish in the fishbowl and the bird in the cage.
You refuse to invent them in the sea or the air.
You stylize or copy once you have seen
their small, agile bodies with your honest eyes.
You love a matter definite and exact,
where the toadstool cannot pitch its camp.
You love the architecture that builds on the absent
and admit the flag simply as a joke.
The steel compass tells its short, elastic verse.
Unknown clouds rise to deny the sphere exists.
The straight line tells of its upward struggle
and the learned crystals sing their geometries.
But also the rose of the garden where you live.
Always the rose, always, our north and south!
Calm and ingathered like an eyeless statue,
not knowing the buried struggle it provokes.
Pure rose, clean of artifice and rough sketches,
opening for us the slender wings of the smile.
(Pinned butterfly that ponders its flight.)
Rose of balance, with no self-inflicted pains.
Always the rose!
Oh Salvador Dali, of the olive-colored voice!
I speak of what your person and your paintings tell me.
I do not praise your halting adolescent brush,
but I sing the steady aim of your arrows.
I sing your fair struggle of Catalan lights,
your love of what might be made clear.
I sing your astronomical and tender heart,
a never-wounded deck of French cards.
I sing your restless longing for the statue,
your fear of the feelings that await you in the street.
I sing the small sea siren who sings to you,
riding her bicycle of co
Scheme | axxb baxc bbbd bbbx xxbe bafx xbgx ebbx beha BIbb jbbk axbb aclm lfba xxba bnxx xgxb xxmx bbjb xxob bhnbb BcIb bxxb odok |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01001101010 01001111 01011101001 011010011 010100111 10111010 0010101001010 101001010 111010101 10110101010 0100110011 00101011001 1101100101 1010110110 011110101 000101010110 10111101010 0101010111 1111101 01110001 001011010011 110111101010 1010111 0010010101 11101011001 1111011 1011001 1101110101 010011101 1011011110 001010110100 101101101 0110111 11010111 0100111101 011111011110 110101010101 11111100101 1110111010111 11111010100110 10011101110 1110110101001 110101011111 01010101010110 01110100010 0011111 11010101 0100111110 0101110110 00101110010100 0101110100 00110101010 11111100101011 1110111010111 011101010110 1111111111010 11101111101 101010110111 01110101110 00010111010 111111101 01011011001 1010101111110 101010110101 01001001001 1011011001101 111101111 11101011101 11010100001 10110111 110100111010 0010110101 01101110101 01111010101 0111111010 00110110100 110011010111 101110101 10111101 11001010101 11111000110 100110101101 11011011 11101110101 101 110101010101 1111110011011 11111100101 11101011110 11111011001 11111111 11101000101 010101111 1111010101 1110101011001 11011101111 10010011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 4,215 |
Words | 777 |
Sentences | 61 |
Stanzas | 24 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 97 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 143 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 18, 2023
- 3:54 min read
- 612 Views
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"Ode to Salvador Dali" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13452/ode-to-salvador-dali>.
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