Analysis of Mummia

Rupert Brooke 1887 (Rugby) – 1915 (Aegean Sea)




As those of old drank mummia
 To fire their limbs of lead,
Making dead kings from Africa
 Stand pandar to their bed;

Drunk on the dead, and medicined
 With spiced imperial dust,
In a short night they reeled to find
 Ten centuries of lust.

So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme,
 Stuffed love's infinity,
And sucked all lovers of all time
 To rarify ecstasy.

Helen's the hair shuts out from me
 Verona's livid skies;
Gypsy the lips I press; and see
 Two Antonys in your eyes.

The unheard invisible lovely dead
 Lie with us in this place,
And ghostly hands above my head
 Close face to straining face;

Their blood is wine along our limbs;
 Their whispering voices wreathe
Savage forgotten drowsy hymns
 Under the names we breathe;

Woven from their tomb, and one with it,
 The night wherein we press;
Their thousand pitchy pyres have lit
 Your flaming nakedness.

For the uttermost years have cried and clung
 To kiss your mouth to mine;
And hair long dust was caught, was flung,
 Hand shaken to hand divine,

And Life has fired, and Death not shaded,
 All Time's uncounted bliss,
And the height o' the world has flamed and faded,
 Love, that our love be this!


Scheme ABXB BCXC ADAD AEDE BFBF GHGH IXIE JKJK XLXL
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 111111 1101111 10111100 11111 110101 1101001 00111111 110011 11111101 110100 01110111 11100 10011111 1101 10011101 11011 0010100101 111011 01010111 111101 111101101 1100101 10010101 100111 101110111 010111 11011011 1101 10111101 111111 01111111 1101101 0111001110 11101 00110111010 1110111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,131
Words 208
Sentences 6
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 36
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 100
Words per stanza (avg) 23
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:03 min read
79

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier". more…

All Rupert Brooke poems | Rupert Brooke Books

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