Analysis of In Absence.
Sidney Lanier 1842 (Macon) – 1881 (Lynn)
The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring --
Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail
Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss
When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,
To round and redden for another kiss --
Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee
What time the drear kiss-intervals must be?
So do the mottled formulas of Sense
Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;
So errors breed in reeds and grasses dense
That bank our singing rivulets of rhyme.
By Sense rule Space and Time; but in God's Land
Their intervals are not, save such as lie
Betwixt successive tones in concords bland
Whose loving distance makes the harmony.
Ah, there shall never come 'twixt me and thee
Gross dissonances of the mile, the year;
But in the multichords of ecstasy
Our souls shall mingle, yet be featured clear,
And absence, wrought to intervals divine,
Shall part, yet link, thy nature's tone and mine.
Look down the shining peaks of all my days
Base-hidden in the valleys of deep night,
So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praise
My love would render unto love's delight;
For I would make each day an Alp sublime
Of passionate snow, white-hot yet icy-clear,
-- One crystal of the true-loves of all time
Spiring the world's prismatic atmosphere;
And I would make each night an awful vale
Deep as thy soul, obscure as modesty,
With every star in heaven trembling pale
O'er sweet profounds where only Love can see.
Oh, runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught? --
When life's all love, 'tis life: aught else, 'tis naught.
Let no man say, `He at his lady's feet
Lays worship that to Heaven alone belongs;
Yea, swings the incense that for God is meet
In flippant censers of light lover's songs.'
Who says it, knows not God, nor love, nor thee;
For love is large as is yon heavenly dome:
In love's great blue, each passion is full free
To fly his favorite flight and build his home.
Did e'er a lark with skyward-pointing beak
Stab by mischance a level-flying dove?
Wife-love flies level, his dear mate to seek:
God-love darts straight into the skies above.
Crossing, the windage of each other's wings
But speeds them both upon their journeyings.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEFGG HIHIJEJGGKGKLL MNMNIKIKEGEGOO PQPQGIGIRSRSXC |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111011101 11111011101 1111010111 1111111111 11111110111 1111010101 111110111 1111010101 111101111 1011110111 1111110101 1101010101 1111011111 1101110011 1101010011 11110111 1101010101 111010111 1111011011 1100111111 010101011 1101010100 1111011101 1110101 10011100 10111011101 0101110001 1111110101 1101011111 1100010111 1111010111 1111010101 1111111101 11001111101 1101011111 10101010 0111111101 1111011100 110010101001 1011110111 1111010111 1111111111 1111111101 11011100101 1100111111 010111101 1111111111 11111111001 0111110111 11110010111 11001110101 111010101 1111011111 1111010101 100111101 11110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,518 |
Words | 455 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 14, 14, 14 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 486 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 112 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:20 min read
- 136 Views
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"In Absence." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34750/in-absence.>.
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