Analysis of Sunshine
Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;
The mighty skies are palisades of light;
The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;
Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.
Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray:
"Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay."
I have not slept for many, many days.
I close my eyes with weariness -- that's all.
I still have strength to feed the drift-wood blaze,
That flickers weirdly on the icy wall.
I still have strength to pray: "God rest her soul,
Here in the awful shadow of the Pole."
There in the cabin's alcove low she lies,
Still candles gleaming at her head and feet;
All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes,
Lips smiling, hands at rest -- O God, how sweet!
How all unutterably sweet she seems. . . .
Not dead, not dead indeed -- she dreams, she dreams.
"Sunshine", I called her, and she brought, I vow,
God's blessed sunshine to this life of mine.
I was a rover, of the breed who plough
Life's furrow in a far-flung, lonely line;
The wilderness my home, my fortune cast
In a wild land of dearth, barbaric, vast.
When did I see her first? Long had I lain
Groping my way to life through fevered gloom.
Sudden the cloud of darkness left my brain;
A velvet bar of sunshine pierced the room,
And in that mellow glory aureoled
She stood, she stood, all golden in its gold.
Sunshine! O miracle! the earth grew glad;
Radiant each blade of grass, each living thing.
What a huge strength, high hope, proud will I had!
All the wide world with rapture seemed to ring.
Would she but wed me? YES: then fared we forth
Into the vast, unvintageable North.
In Muskrat Land the conies leap,
The wavies linger in their flight;
The jewelled, snakelike rivers creep;
The sun, sad rogue, is out all night;
The great wood bison paws the sand,
In Muskrat Land, in Muskrat Land.
In Muskrat Land dim streams divide
The tundras belted by the sky.
How sweet in slim canoe to glide,
And dream, and let the world go by!
Build gay camp-fires on greening strand!
In Muskrat Land, in Muskrat Land.
And so we dreamed and drifted, she and I;
And how she loved that free, unfathomed life!
There in the peach-bloom of the midnight sky,
The silence welded us, true man and wife.
Then North and North invincibly we pressed
Beyond the Circle, to the world's white crest.
And on the wind-flailed Arctic waste we stayed,
Dwelt with the Huskies by the Polar sea.
Fur had they, white fox, marten, mink to trade,
And we had food-stuff, bacon, flour and tea.
So we made snug, chummed up with all the band:
Sudden the Winter swooped on Husky Land.
What was that ill so sinister and dread,
Smiting the tribe with sickness to the bone?
So that we waked one morn to find them fled;
So that we stood and stared, alone, alone.
Bravely she smiled and looked into my eyes;
Laughed at their troubled, stern, foreboding pain;
Gaily she mocked the menace of the skies,
Turned to our cheery cabin once again,
Saying: "'Twill soon be over, dearest one,
The long, long night: then O the sun, the sun!"
God made a heart of gold, of gold,
Shining and sweet and true;
Gave it a home of fairest mould,
Blest it, and called it -- You.
God gave the rose its grace of glow,
And the lark its radiant glee;
But, better than all, I know, I know
God gave you, Heart, to me.
She was all sunshine in those dubious days;
Our cabin beaconed with defiant light;
We chattered by the friendly drift-wood blaze;
Closer and closer cowered the hag-like night.
A wolf-howl would have been a welcome sound,
And there was none in all that stricken land;
Yet with such silence, darkness, death around,
Learned we to love as few can understand.
Spirit with spirit fused, and soul with soul,
There in the sullen shadow of the Pole.
What was that haunting horror of the night?
Brave was she; buoyant, full of sunny cheer.
Why was her face so small, so strangely white?
Then did I turn from her, heart-sick with fear;
Sought in my agony the outcast snows;
Prayed in my pain to that insensate sky;
Grovelled and sobbed and cursed, and then arose:
"Sunshine! O heart of gold! to die! to die!"
She died on Christmas day -- it seems so sad
That one you love should die on Christmas day.
Head-bowed I knelt by her; O God! I had
No tears to shed, no moan, no prayer to p
Scheme | ababcc dedeff ghghii jkjkll mnmnbo pqpqrr sbsbtT uvuvtT vwvwxx yzyztt 1 2 1 2 gmgx3 3 o4 o4 5 z5 z dbdb6 t6 tff b7 b7 avav pcpz |
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Poetic Form | Tetractys (21%) |
Metre | 1101110101 010110111 0111010101 10110101 10110111001 1001110101 1111110101 1111110011 1111110111 1101010101 1111111101 100101101 10011111 1101010101 111111111 1101111111 111111 1111011111 111001111 11111111 1101010111 1100011101 0100111101 0011110101 1111011111 1011111101 1001110111 010111101 00110101 1111110011 111000111 10011111101 1011111111 1011110111 1111111111 010111 011011 0110011 011101 01111111 01110101 011011 0111101 0110101 11010111 01010111 111101101 011011 0111010101 01111111 100111011 0101011101 1101111 0101010111 0101110111 110110101 1111110111 01111101001 1111111101 1001011101 1111110001 101110101 1111111111 1111010101 1011010111 1111010101 1011010101 11101010101 1011110101 0111110101 11011111 100101 11011101 110111 11011111 00111001 110111111 111111 1111011001 1010110101 111010111 1001010111 0111110101 0111011101 1111010101 111111101 1011010111 100101101 1111010101 1111011101 1101111101 1111101111 101100011 10111111 101010101 111111111 1111011111 1111111101 1111101111 1111111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,158 |
Words | 797 |
Sentences | 54 |
Stanzas | 16 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 10, 4, 4, 10, 8, 4 |
Lines Amount | 100 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 203 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:59 min read
- 43 Views
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"Sunshine" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32458/sunshine>.
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