Analysis of Vision of Belshazzar
George Gordon Lord Byron 1788 (London) – 1824 (Missolonghi, Aetolia)
The King was on his throne,
The Satraps throng'd the hall:
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deem'd divine--
Jehovah's vessels hold
The godless Heathen's wine!
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man;--
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,
And traced them like a wand.
The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look
And tremulous his voice.
'Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth.'
Chaldea's seers are good,
But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age
Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw - but knew no more.
A captive in the land,
A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night, -
The morrow proved it true.
'Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud his robe of state,
His canopy the stone:
The Mede is at his gate!
The Persian on his throne!'
Scheme | ABAXCDCD BEBEFEFX GHGHIJIJ KLKLMNMN EOEOPQPQ RSRSTATA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011111 01101 010111 1011100 010111 010101 010101 01011 0111001 010101 110101 011111 010101 01001 010101 011101 01101 011101 110111 010011 1011101 010101 0010111 1110101 1111 111111 0001101 010101 01111 110101 111011 111111 010001 010001 110101 11111 010101 010001 111111 010111 1111 110101 100101 110101 011111 110001 011111 010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,283 |
Words | 245 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 162 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 18, 2023
- 1:16 min read
- 108 Views
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"Vision of Belshazzar" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15311/vision-of-belshazzar>.
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