Analysis of Snow Dance For The Dead
Lola Ridge 1873 – 1941
Dance, little children ... it is holy twilight . . .
Have you hung paper flowers about the necks of the ikons?
Dance soft . . . but very gaily ... on tip-toes like the snow.
Spread your little pinafores
And courtesy as the snow does . . .
The snow that bends this way and that
In silent salutation.
Do not wait to warm your hands about the fires.
Do not mind the rough licking of the wind.
Dance forth into the shaggy night that shakes itself upon you.
Dance beneath the Kremlin towers—golden
In the royal
Purple of the sky—
But not there where the light is strongest . . .
Bright hair is dazzling in the light.
Dance in the dim violet places
Where the snow throws out a faint lustre
Like the lustre of dead faces . . .
Snow downier than wild-geese feathers . . .
Enough filling for five hundred pillows ...
By the long deep trench of the dead.
Bend, little children,
To the rhythm of the snow
That undulates this way and that
In silver spirals.
Cup your hands like tiny chalices . . .
Let the flakes fill up the rosy
Hollows of your palms
And alight upon your hair,
Like kisses that cling softly
A moment and let go ...
Like many kisses falling altogether . . .
Quick . . . cool kisses.
Scheme | ABC BBDCBXX EXXXABFBBBX ECDBBBBXXCFB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011101 11110100101101 1111010111101 11101 01001011 01111101 0101 111111101010 1110110101 110101011101011 1010101010 0010 10101 111101110 111100001 100110010 101110110 10101110 1111110 0110111010 10111101 11010 1010101 1101101 01010 1111101 10111010 10111 0010111 1101110 010011 1101010010 1110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,174 |
Words | 205 |
Sentences | 42 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 7, 11, 12 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 224 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 59 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 144 Views
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"Snow Dance For The Dead" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25923/snow-dance-for-the-dead>.
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