Analysis of The Mockery

Harriet Monroe 1860 (Chicago) – 1936 (Arequipa)



Sometimes I laugh—what else can a man do
Who does not know ? This little ego here
Braving the void, this fleck upon the blue,
This filmy wing sounding the starry sphere—
What bold abysmal incongruity,
What joke of the gods to make a mock of me !

I hear you sing, and wonder how you dare.
Too fine for song they are—the tint of the rose,
The touch of a child, love's beauty and despair,
All the sad furtive exquisiteness that blows,
Like scent of gardens I may never see,
Across my sense to make a mock of me.

That I, this atom infinitesimal,
This chance-blown seed of flesh and fire, that I
Should front the dread immensity, the all,
Shocking the silence with my futile cry—
What dark inscrutable absurdity,
What joke of the gods to make a mock of me!


Scheme axaxbB cdcdbb xexebB
Poetic Form
Metre 0111111011 1111110101 1001110101 111100101 110100100 11101110111 1111010111 11111101101 01101110001 10110111 1111011101 0111110111 1111000100 11111101011 1101101 1001011101 1101000100 11101110111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 767
Words 143
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 194
Words per stanza (avg) 48
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
55

Harriet Monroe

Harriet Monroe was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet and patron of the arts. more…

All Harriet Monroe poems | Harriet Monroe Books

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