Analysis of The Coast-Road
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
A horseman high alone as an eagle on the spur of the mountain
over Mirmas Canyon draws rein, looks down
At the bridge-builders, men, trucks, the power-shovels, the teeming
end of the new coast-road at the mountain's base.
He sees the loops of the road go northward, headland beyond
headland, into gray mist over Eraser's Point,
He shakes his fist and makes the gesture of wringing a chicken's
neck, scowls and rides higher.
I too
Believe that the life of men who ride horses, herders of cattle on
the mountain pasture, plowers of remote
Rock-narrowed farms in poverty and freedom, is a good life. At
the far end of those loops of road
Is what will come and destroy it, a rich and vulgar and bewildered
civilization dying at the core,
A world that is feverishly preparing new wars, peculiarly vicious
ones, and heavier tyrannies, a strangely
Missionary world, road-builder, wind-rider, educator, printer and
picture-maker and broadcaster,
So eager, like an old drunken whore, pathetically eager to impose
the seduction of her fled charms
On all that through ignorance or isolation might have escaped
them. I hope the weathered horseman up yonder
Will die before he knows what this eager world will do to his
children. More tough-minded men
Can repulse an old whore, or cynically accept her drunken kindnesses
for what they are worth,
But the innocent and credulous are soon corrupted.
Where is our
consolation? Beautiful beyond belief
The heights glimmer in the sliding cloud, the great bronze gorge-cut
sides of the mountain tower up invincibly,
Not the least hurt by this ribbon of road carved on their sea-foot.
Scheme | XXXAXXXB XXXXXXXXCXBXXXBXXAXX BXXCX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010111101011010 101101111 101101101010010 11011110101 1101101110101 101111011 111101010110010 110110 11 01101111110101101 010101101 1101010001010111 01111111 11110011010100010 001010101 011110001011010010 10100100010 1001110110100100 1010010 1101111010100010101 00101011 111110010101101 11101010110 110111111011111 1011101 10111111000010101 11111 10100010011010 1110 0101000101 01100010101111 110101011 101111101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,589 |
Words | 273 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 20, 5 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 431 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 90 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 04, 2023
- 1:22 min read
- 106 Views
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