Analysis of Shane O’Neill’s Cairn
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
TO U. J.
When you and I on the Palos Verdes cliff
Found life more desperate than dear,
And when we hawked at it on the lake by Seattle,
In the west of the world, where hardly
Anything has died yet: we'd not have been sorry, Una,
But surprised, to foresee this gray
Coast in our days, the gray waters of the Moyle
Below us, and under our feet
The heavy black stones of the cairn of the lord of Ulster.
A man of blood who died bloodily
Four centuries ago: but death's nothing, and life,
From a high death-mark on a headland
Of this dim island of burials, is nothing either.
How beautiful are both these nothings.
Scheme | ABCDEFAGHIDJHIK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 111 11011010101 1111011 0111111011010 001101110 1011111111010 10110111 101010110101 011010101 01011101101110 0111111 110001111001 10111101 11110110011010 110011110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 604 |
Words | 120 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 15 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 472 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 118 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 90 Views
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"Shane O’Neill’s Cairn" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32846/shane-o%E2%80%99neill%E2%80%99s-cairn>.
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