Analysis of song



Undamaged stars littered a blue-black night
Everywhere only cold, ancient quiet
Archetypal earth was newly spun
The life of man had just begun

In the mists of time, a troubled soul
Crept out of her cave and lifted her head to the stars
Wondering why things sometimes went wrong
And gave to the night and the soul of man

The first human song

She had seen the Neanderthal strike the woman
For no reason at all
Save the harshness of the world in which he lived
Not knowing the words to protest,
A blow was all he had to give

She thought there must be a better way
For the overflow of life to escape a man’s heart
She had seen a mother lay down her child
On the cold stone with the same tenderness
She had when it was alive, then walk away mute

Sounds from her heart wrung themselves free
Sounds never before that moment heard
Feeling wrapped itself around life inured
And became the first song of humanity

It was a song of love and hope and to the stars and cold moon
Drawing mercy from the storm
Spirit took form
Pristine, high, strong. Song of man from that day on

Strings of energy picked it up
And gave it flight

The world changed that night

The Song would be renewed again and again
By joy and sorrow in the hearts of men

It whirls—
It stretches across the Sahara, where it scorches the sands with its fire
In Greece It circles the olive tree and births the legend of Pan with his lyre
Then falls down a waterfall and bursts to foam
Leaps up to mist and continues to roam

Around the high Ural Mountains, it becomes a keening
Low on the breast of the Amazon, it gathers deep meaning

The tones become ice in the snows of Kilimanjaro
It sweeps the world endlessly, taking root wherever it goes

It slithers through leaves and vines past a troubled
Cambodian’s ear
Who was not taught to listen and, thus, cannot hear

Louder than volcanic thunder, softer than a baby’s sigh
The song laughs in the morning; at night it cries

It is swept by cosmic wind through the hearts of men

It is, for some, the only blanket they have
And the only food they will have this night
For some, the crown of delight
A kind of prayer
For some it’s no more than just there

Its rhythm is the rumble in the belly of the miner before lunch
A thousand baby giggles
Shrieks from torn flesh of soldiers in the field
Playgrounds
A mother’s lullaby hum
A chocolate-coated “umm!”
Tuberculotic cough
Gargantuan sneeze
Pleasure’s gasp
The sailor’s great break of wind
Snarling snoring
Death’s sigh at the end

The melody ebbs and wanes
Humanity’s refrain
Always serpentine change

So grows this song across the Earth
This woman so long ago gave birth

“Spiritus,” spirit
Is breath
The song is breath
Spirit song

All our breath is one breath
All our songs but one

The earth shimmers in space
It sings to our universe
“this is us”
the stars listen


Scheme ABCC XDEX E CXXXX XXXFX GXXG XHHX XA A II DXXJJ EK XX XLL XX I XAAMM XXXXNNXXXXKX XXX OO BPPE PC XXFC
Poetic Form
Metre 101100111 101011010 11011101 01111101 001110101 1110101001101 100110111 0110100111 01101 11100101010 111011 10101010111 1100111 01111111 111110101 101011101011 1110101101 1011101100 111110111011 11011011 110011101 1010101101 00101110100 110111010101011 1010101 1011 10111111111 11100111 0111 01111 01110101001 1101000111 11 110010010111011110 0111001010101011111 1110100111 1111001011 0101101010101 11011010110110 0101100110010 110110010101011 1111011010 1001 111111001101 10101010101011 01100101111 111110110111 11110101011 0010111111 1101101 0111 11111111 110101000101010011 0101010 1111110001 1 010101 010101 11 01001 101 0101111 1010 11101 0100101 101 1101 11110101 110110111 110 11 0111 101 1101111 110111 011001 1111010 111 0110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,878
Words 563
Sentences 3
Stanzas 23
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 1, 5, 5, 4, 4, 2, 1, 2, 5, 2, 2, 3, 2, 1, 5, 12, 3, 2, 4, 2, 4
Lines Amount 79
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 98
Words per stanza (avg) 23

About this poem

speculative- there must have been a first

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Written on June 28, 2001

Submitted by steve-edwards on January 16, 2023

Modified on March 14, 2023

2:49 min read
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