Analysis of The Silent Shepherds
Robinson Jeffers 1887 (Allegheny) – 1962 (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
What's the best life for a man?
--Never to have been born, sings the choros, and the next best
Is to die young. I saw the Sybil at Cumae
Hung in her cage over the public street--
What do you want, Sybil? I want to die.
Apothanein Thelo. Apothanein Thelo. Apothanein Thelo.
You have got your wish. But I meant life, not death.
What's the best life for a man? To ride in the wind. To ride
horses and herd cattle
In solitary places above the ocean on the beautiful mountain,
and come home hungry in the evening
And eat and sleep. He will live in the wild wind and quick rain,
he will not ruin his eyes with reading,
Nor think too much.
However, we must have philosophers.
I will have shepherds for my philosophers,
Tall dreary men lying on the hills all night
Watching the stars, let their dogs watch the sheep. And I'll have
lunatics
For my poets, strolling from farm to farm, wild liars distorting
The country news into supernaturalism--
For all men to such minds are devils or gods--and that increases
Man's dignity, man's importance, necessary lies
Best told by fools.
I will have no lawyers nor constables
Each man guard his own goods: there will be manslaughter,
But no more wars, no more mass-sacrifice. Nor I'll have no doctors,
Except old women gathering herbs on the mountain,
Let each have her sack of opium to ease the death-pains.
That would be a good world, free and out-doors.
But the vast hungry spirit of the time
Cries to his chosen that there is nothing good
Except discovery, experiment and experience and discovery: To look
truth in the eyes,
To strip truth naked, let our dogs do our living for us
But man discover.
It is a fine ambition,
But the wrong tools. Science and mathematics
Run parallel to reality, they symbolize it, they squint at it,
They never touch it: consider what an explosion
Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky
the world
If any mind for a moment touch truth.
Submitted by Holt
Scheme | XXAXXBXXBCDXDXEEXXFDAXGXXHECX XAXXGXHCFXCDXX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011101 1011111010011 11111101011 1001100101 1111101111 111111 11111111111 10111011100111 100110 010010010101010010 011100010 01011110011011 1111011110 1111 101110100 11110110100 11011010111 1001111101011 10 1110101111110010 01010101000 1111111101101010 110010101001 1111 1111101100 11111111110 111111110111110 0111010011010 11101110011011 1110111011 1011010101 11110111101 0101000100001000010011 1001 1111011011101011 11010 1101010 1011100010 11011011011111 1101101011010 110111011011001 01 1101101011 01011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,022 |
Words | 356 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 29, 14, 1 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 508 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 118 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 15, 2023
- 1:48 min read
- 53 Views
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