Analysis of Lonely Burial
Stephen Vincent Benet 1898 (Bethlehem) – 1943 (New York City)
There were not many at that lonely place,
Where two scourged hills met in a little plain.
The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again.
Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race
Unseen by any. Toward the further woods
A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.
-- We were most silent in those solitudes --
Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,
The clotted earth piled roughly up about
The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,
Short words in swordlike Latin -- and a rout
Of dreams most impotent, unwearying.
Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,
The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.
Scheme | AXXAXBAB CDCDXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011011101 1111100101 0111011101 1111010001 01110010101 0111110101 10110011 1101010111 0101110101 0111010111 110110001 1111001 1101111001 0100110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 628 |
Words | 115 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 242 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 57 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 96 Views
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"Lonely Burial" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35798/lonely-burial>.
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