Analysis of Night Without Sleep
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
The world's as the world is; the nations rearm and prepare to
change; the age of tyrants returns;
The greatest civilization that has ever existed builds itself higher
towers on breaking foundations.
Recurrent episodes; they were determined when the ape's children
first ran in packs, chipped flint to an edge.
I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof, and the blind wind.
In the morning perhaps
I shall find strength again
To value the immense beauty of this time of the world, the flowers
of decay their pitiful loveliness, the fever-dream
Tapestries that back the drama and are called the future. This
ebb of vitality feels the ignoble and cruel
Incidents, not the vast abstract order.
I lie and hear dark rain beat
the roof, and the night-blind wind.
In the Ventana country darkness and rain and the roar of waters
fill the deep mountain-throats.
The creekside shelf of sand where we lay last August under a slip of stars,
And firelight played on the leaning gorge-walls, is drowned and
lost. The deer of the country huddle on a ridge
In a close herd under madrone-trees; they tremble when a rockslide
goes down, they open great darkness-
Drinking eyes and press closer.
Cataracts of rock
Rain down the mountain from cliff to cliff and torment the
stream-bed. The stream deals with them. The laurels are wounded,
Redwoods go down with their earth and lie thwart the gorge. I
hear the torrent boulders battering each other,
I feel the flesh of the mountain move on its bones in the wet
darkness.
Is this more beautiful
Than man's disasters? These wounds will heal in their time; so
will humanity's. This is more beautiful ... at night . . .
Scheme | AXBXXXC XXDXXEB XCDXXXXAFB XXXXBXF EXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011011010110011 10111001 0100010111001010110 10110010 010101001010110 110111111 1101111010011 001001 111101 11000110111101010 101110010101 100110100110101 11010010010010 1001010110 1101111 0100111 001101001001110 101101 01111111110100111 011101011110 101101010101 00111011110101 11110110 1010110 1011 110101111010 1101111010110 111111011011 101010100110 110110101111001 10 111100 1101011110111 1010011110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,615 |
Words | 286 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 10, 7, 3 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 261 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 58 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 80 Views
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