Analysis of Medusa
Louise Bogan 1897 (Livermore Falls) – 1970 (New York City)
I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.
When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.
This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.
The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.
And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.
Scheme | XAXA XBXXB XCXC XDED XEXE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110100111 10011 1010111011 1001011 10110011 00101 1110101101 01110101010 1001 110110101 101101 01110101111 1011 0101110111 0011111 011111011 1101 01111101 1001101 11101011110001 011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 737 |
Words | 146 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 5, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 21 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 43 sec read
- 76 Views
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"Medusa" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/26135/medusa>.
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