Analysis of To the Obelisk
Mathilde Blind 1841 (Mannheim) – 1896 (London)
DURING THE GREAT FROST, 1881.
Thou sign-post of the Desert! Obelisk,
Once fronting in thy monumental pride
Egypt's fierce sun, that blazing far and wide,
Sheared her of tree and herb, till like a disk
Her waste stretched shadowless, and fraught with risk
To those who with their beasts of burden hied
Across the seas of sand until they spied
Thy pillar, and their flagging hearts grew brisk:
Now reared beside out Thames so wintry grey,
Where blocks of ice drift with the drifting stream,
Thou risest o'er the alien prospect! Say,
Yon dull, blear, rayless orb whose lurid gleam
Tinges the snow-draped ships and writhing steam,
Is this the sun which fired thine orient day?
Scheme | A BCCBBACB DEDEED |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 10011 11110101 110010101 1011110101 1011011101 01110111 1111111101 0101110111 1100110111 1101111101 1111110101 11100100101 111111101 101110101 11011101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 680 |
Words | 118 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 178 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 64 Views
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"To the Obelisk" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/27116/to-the-obelisk>.
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