Analysis of Voyages V
Harold Hart Crane 1899 (Garrettsville, Ohio) – 1932 (Gulf of Mexico)
Meticulous, past midnight in clear rime,
Infrangible and lonely, smooth as though cast
Together in one merciless white blade-
The bay estuaries fleck the hard sky limits.
-As if too brittle or too clear to touch!
The cables of our sleep so swiftly filed,
Already hang, shred ends from remembered stars.
One frozen trackless smile . . . What words
Can strangle this deaf moonlight? For we
Are overtaken. Now no cry, no sword
Can fasten or deflect this tidal wedge,
Slow tyranny of moonlight, moonlight loved
And changed . 'There's
Nothing like this in the world,' you say,
is Knowing I cannot touch your hand and look
Too, into that godless cleft of sky
Where nothing turns but dead sands flashing.
'-And never to quite understand!' No,
In all the argosy of your bright hair I dreamed
Nothing so flagless as this piracy.
But now
Draw in your head, alone and too tall here.
Your eyes already in the slant of drifting foam;
Your breath sealed by the ghosts I do not know:
Draw in your head and sleep the long way home.
Scheme | AXXX XXXXB XXXX XXXX CXB XXACA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (28%) |
Metre | 010011011 10101111 0100110011 01100101110 1111011111 01011011101 01011110101 1101111 11011111 110011111 1101011101 11001111 011 101100111 11011011101 101110111 110111110 01011011 010100111111 101111100 11 1011010111 110100011101 1111011111 1011010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,023 |
Words | 184 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5 |
Lines Amount | 25 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 106 Views
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