Analysis of Passage
Harold Hart Crane 1899 (Garrettsville, Ohio) – 1932 (Gulf of Mexico)
Where the cedar leaf divides the sky
I heard the sea.
In sapphire arenas of the hills
I was promised an improved infancy.
Sulking, sanctioning the sun,
My memory I left in a ravine,-
Casual louse that tissues the buck-wheat,
Aprons rocks, congregates pears
In moonlit bushels
And wakens alleys with a hidden cough.
Dangerously the summer burned
(I had joined the entrainments of the wind).
The shadows of boulders lengthened my back:
In the bronze gongs of my cheeks
The rain dried without odour.
'It is not long, it is not long;
See where the red and black
Vine-stanchioned valleys-': but the wind
Died speaking through the ages that you know
And bug, chimney-sooted heart of man!
So was I turned about and back, much as your smoke
Compiles a too well-known biography.
The evening was a spear in the ravine
That throve through very oak. And had I walked
The dozen particular decimals of time?
Touching an opening laurel, I found
A thief beneath, my stolen book in hand.
''Why are you back here-smiling an iron coffin?
' 'To argue with the laurel,' I replied:
'Am justified in transience, fleeing
Under the constant wonder of your eyes-.'
He closed the book. And from the Ptolemies
Sand troughed us in a glittering,, abyss.
A serpent swam a vertex to the sun
-On unpaced beaches leaned its tongue and
drummed.
What fountains did I hear? What icy speeches?
Memory, committed to the page, had broke.
Scheme | XAXA BCXXXX XDEXX XEDXXFA CXXXX XXXX AXBXXXF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101010101 1101 0100010101 1110101100 1010001 1100110001 100111011 10111 0110 011010101 10000101 11101101 011101011 0011111 011011 11111111 110101 1110101 1101010111 01101111 111101011111 0101110100 0101010001 1111010111 010010010011 1011001011 0101110101 111111011010 1101010101 110010010 1001010111 11010101 1110010001 010101101 11101110 1 11011111010 10001010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,405 |
Words | 250 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 6, 5, 7, 5, 4, 7 |
Lines Amount | 38 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 156 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 35 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 22, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 132 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Passage" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/16820/passage>.
Discuss this Harold Hart Crane 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