Analysis of The City Revisited
Stephen Vincent Benet 1898 (Bethlehem) – 1943 (New York City)
The grey gulls drift across the bay
Softly and still as flakes of snow
Against the thinning fog. All day
I sat and watched them come and go;
And now at last the sun was set,
Filling the waves with colored fire
Till each seemed like a jewelled spire
Thrust up from some drowned city. Soon
From peak and cliff and minaret
The city's lights began to wink,
Each like a friendly word. The moon
Began to broaden out her shield,
Spurting with silver. Straight before
The brown hills lay like quiet beasts
Stretched out beside a well-loved door,
And filling earth and sky and field
With the calm heaving of their breasts.
Nothing was gone, nothing was changed,
The smallest wave was unestranged
By all the long ache of the years
Since last I saw them, blind with tears.
Their welcome like the hills stood fast:
And I, I had come home at last.
So I laughed out with them aloud
To think that now the sun was broad,
And climbing up the iron sky,
Where the raw streets stretched sullenly
About another room I knew,
In a mean house -- and soon there, too,
The smith would burst the flimsy door
And find me lying on the floor.
Just where I fell the other night,
After that breaking wave of pain. --
How they will storm and rage and fight,
Servants and mistress, one and all,
"No money for the funeral!"
I broke my life there. Let it stand
At that.
The waters are a plain,
Heaving and bright on either hand,
A tremulous and lustral peace
Which shall endure though all things cease,
Filling my heart as water fills
A cup. There stand the quiet hills.
So, waiting for my wings to grow,
I watch the gulls sail to and fro,
Rising and falling, soft and swift,
Drifting along as bubbles drift.
And, though I see the face of God
Hereafter -- this day have I trod
Nearer to Him than I shall tread
Ever again. The night is dead.
And there's the dawn, poured out like wine
Along the dim horizon-line.
And from the city comes the chimes --
We have our heaven on earth -- sometimes!
Scheme | ABABCXXDCXDEFXFEX XCXXGG XXXHIIFFJKJHH LXKLMMNNBBOOPPQQRRS S |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110101 10011111 01010111 11011101 01110111 100111010 1111011 11111101 1101001 01010111 11010101 01110101 10110101 01111101 11010111 01010101 10110111 10111011 010111 11011101 11111111 11010111 01111111 11111101 11110111 01010101 101111 01010111 00110111 01110101 01110101 11110101 10110111 11110101 10010101 11010100 11111111 11 010101 10011101 0100011 11011111 10111101 01110101 11011111 11011101 10010101 10011101 01110111 01011111 10111111 10010111 01011111 01010101 01010101 1110101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,963 |
Words | 374 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 17, 6, 13, 19, 1 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 304 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 74 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:52 min read
- 72 Views
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"The City Revisited" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35815/the-city-revisited>.
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