Analysis of The White Witch
James Weldon Johnson 1871 (Jacksonville) – 1938 (Wiscasset)
O, brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides out to-night,
Trust not your prowess nor your strength;
Your only safety lies in flight;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile there is a blight.
The great white witch you have not seen?
Then, younger brothers mine, forsooth,
Like nursery children you have looked
For ancient hag and snaggled tooth;
But no, not so; the witch appears
In all the glowing charms of youth.
Her lips are like carnations red,
Her face like new-born lilies fair,
Her eyes like ocean waters blue,
She moves with subtle grace and air,
And all about her head there floats
The golden glory of her hair.
But though she always thus appears
In form of youth and mood of mirth,
Unnumbered centuries are hers,
The infant planets saw her birth;
The child of throbbing Life is she,
Twin sister to the greedy earth.
And back behind those smiling lips,
And down within those laughing eyes,
And underneath the soft caress
Of hand and voice and purring sighs,
The shadow of the panther lurks,
The spirit of the vampire lies.
For I have seen the great white witch,
And she has led me to her lair,
And I have kissed her red, red lips
And cruel face so white and fair;
Around me she has twined her arms,
And bound me with her yellow hair.
I felt those red lips burn and sear
My body like a living coal;
Obeyed the power of those eyes
As the needle trembles to the pole;
And did not care although I felt
The strength go ebbing from my soul.
Oh! she has seen your strong young limbs,
And heard your laughter loud and gay,
And in your voices she has caught
The echo of a far-off day,
When man was closer to the earth;
And she has marked you for her prey.
She feels the old Antæan strength
In you, the great dynamic beat
Of primal passions, and she sees
In you the last besieged retreat
Of love relentless, lusty, fierce,
Love pain-ecstatic, cruel-sweet.
O, brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides out to-night.
O, younger brothers mine, beware!
Look not upon her beauty bright;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile there is a blight.
Scheme | ABcbAB xcxded xaxaxa efxfxf ghxhxh xagaxa xihixi xjxjfj ckxkxk ABabAB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (33%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11011111 01111111 11110111 11010101 10011101 00011101 01111111 1101011 110010111 1101011 11110101 01010111 01110101 01111101 01110101 11110101 01010111 01010101 1111101 01110111 110010 01010101 01110111 11010101 01011101 01011101 0010101 11010101 0110101 01010101 11110111 01111101 01110111 01011101 01111101 01110101 11111101 11010101 01010111 10101101 0111111 01110111 11111111 01110101 00110111 01010111 11110101 01111101 1101111 01010101 11010011 01010101 11010101 11010101 11011111 01111111 11010101 11010101 10011101 00011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,063 |
Words | 397 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 165 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:59 min read
- 165 Views
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"The White Witch" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/20743/the-white-witch>.
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