Analysis of The Story of a Soul
James Brunton Stephens 1835 (Scotland) – 1902
Who can say “Thus far, no farther,” to the tide of his own nature?
Who can mould the spirit's fashion to the counsel of his will?
Square his being by enactment—shape his soul to legislature—
Be himself his law of living, his own art of good and ill?
Who can sway the rhythm of breathing? Who can time his own heart beating?
Fix the pitch of all soul music, and imprison it in bars?
Who can pledge the immaterial affinities from meeting?
Who can make him his own orbit unrelated to the stars?
I had marked my path before me, not in flowery lane or by-way,
Unbeguiled of all bird-singing, by no voice of waters won;
And across life's silent glacier I had cut a clear cold highway,
Little recking of the avalanche, or all-dissolving sun.
I had said unto my soul, Be thou the lord of thine own Reason;
Get thee face to face and heart to heart with everlasting Truth;—
Thou art heir of all her beauty if thou dare the lofty treason
To clasp her and to kiss her with the valiant lips of youth.
Not in outer courts of worship, not by darkly-curtained portal,
But within her inmost chamber, in the glory of her shrine,
Shalt thou seek her and commune with her, a mortal made immortal
By the breathing of her presence, by her fervid hand in thine.
With no garment-clinging vassalage, unawed of all tradition,
Alone, alone of mortals shalt thou gaze upon her face;
And the years shall pass unheeded in the wonder of the vision,
And her attributes unfolding make thee free of time and space.
So I left the dewy levels, and with upward-pointing finger
Marked my goal among the snowy peaks o'er pleasure and o'er pain;
And the shining arms of Aphrodité beckoning me to linger
By her side amid her rosy bowers were stretched for me in vain.
And I heard the world pass by me with a far-off dreamy cadence
Of an alien music uninformed with meaning to mine ears;
And all sweet melodious laughter in the voice of men and maidens
Came with distance-saddened undertone, a mockery of tears.
Till alike the throb of pleasure and alike the great o'erflowings
Of the springs of sorrow seemed to be forgotten things of yore;
Till the world passed from beneath me, and the rumour of its goings
Far diffused into the silent ethers reached my soul no more.
And the bodiless and shadowless mute ghosts of contemplation,
Charmed from spells of bookish lore, were my companions on my way;
And their flake-light footfalls cheered me to a dreamy exaltation
Where the soul sat with the godheads, unassailable as they.
I had lost the glow of Nature; and the pride of clearer seeing
Was to me for all elation, for the sunset and the flowers,
For the beauty and the music and the savour of all being,
For the starry thrills of midnight, for the joy of morning hours.
Down the slopes I left behind me fled the creeds of many races,
Fled the gnomes of superstition, fled rebuking fiends of fear,
And I smiled as I beheld them from the calm of my high places
Cast integument and substance, melt in mist and disappear.
So I held my way unwavering in dismal mountainpasses,
Though a voice within my soul was loud, “In vain, and all in vain!”
And I heard the unassuaging streams far down in deep crevasses,
And I stumbled snowblind 'mid the boulders of the long moraine.
Still I said, I will not falter, nor revisit earth for ever,
Who have breathed the breath of deity and lived Olympian hours!
——When the summer smote the glacier, and the ice became a river,
And I found me in the valley clinging wildly to the flowers!
Clinging wildly, clinging fondly, in a mad repentant fashion,
To the blossoms long forsaken, to the graces long foregone,
Paying lavishly in tears and sighs the long arrears of passion,
And re-wedded to the joy of earth by one fair thing thereon!
Fools and blind are we who think to soar beyond the reach of Nature!
Fools and blind who think to bid the tide of feeling from its flood!
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?
Or compel the summer fervours from the solstice of the blood?
Not “as gods.” Not yet. Our roots are in the earth that heaves beneath me:
With her rhythm we move and tremble, with her starry dance we whirl.
Lo, she laughs when I would fly to where her arms shall not enwreath me,
Draws me back with cords of golden hair, o'erthrows me with a girl!
What was I to deem it duty thus to sunder Truth and Beauty—
Thus to die among the living, and to live among the dead?
Ah, the hands of Truth are boonless, and the lips of Truth are tuneless,
When we sever her from Love, and throne her coldly overhead!
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF FGFG HIHI FJFJ AKAK XXXXDLXL FE FE CMCM NONO DKDK AMAM FPFP AQAQ RSRS RTDT |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111010111110 111010101010111 111010101111100 101111101111101 11101011011111110 101111100010101 111001000100110 11111110010101 11111011101001111 1111101111101 001110101110111 1011010110101 1111011110111110 11111011110101 1111101011101010 11001101010111 101011101110110 10101100010101 1110010100101010 101010101010101 1110101111010 01011101110101 0011101000101010 00100101111101 1110101001101010 11101010110100101 00101111001110 1010101010011101 0110111110111010 111001001110111 01101001000111010 11101010010011 10101110001011 101110111010111 101110110001110 101010101011111 00101111010 111110101010111 011111110101 1011101010011 1110111000111010 111110101010010 101000100011110 101011110111010 1011101110111010 10110101010111 011111110111110 10100010101001 1111101000101 101011111010101 01101111011 01101101010101 1111111010101110 11101110001010010 1010101000101010 0111001010101010 1010101000101010 101010101010111 1010001010101110 011010111111101 1011111110101110 101111101110111 1111101111101110 10101011010101 11111101100111011 1010110101010111 111111111011111 11111110111101 1111111011101010 111010100110101 10111110011111 111001101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 4,485 |
Words | 842 |
Sentences | 34 |
Stanzas | 18 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8, 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 72 |
Letters per line (avg) | 49 |
Words per line (avg) | 12 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 198 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 4:14 min read
- 46 Views
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"The Story of a Soul" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20044/the-story-of-a-soul>.
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