Analysis of On Reading Omar Khayyam
[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]
In the midst of the battle I turned,
(For the thunders could flourish without me)
And hid by a rose-hung wall,
Forgetting the murder about me;
And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
In mirth, half prayer, half play: —
"Send me a picture book,
Send me a song, to-day."
I saw him there by the wall
When I scarce had written the line,
In the enemy's colors dressed
And the serpent-standard of wine
Writhing its withered length
From his ghostly hands o'er the ground,
And there by his shadowy breast
The glorious poem I found.
This was his world-old cry:
Thus read the famous prayer:
"Wine, wine, wine and flowers
And cup-bearers always fair!"
'Twas a book of the snares of earth
Bordered in gold and blue,
And I read each line to the wind
And read to the roses too:
And they nodded their womanly heads
And told to the wall just why
For wine of the earth men bleed,
Kingdoms and empires die.
I envied the grape stained sage:
(The roses were praising him.)
The ways of the world seemed good
And the glory of heaven dim.
I envied the endless kings
Who found great pearls in the mire,
Who bought with the nation's life
The cup of delicious fire.
But the wine of God came down,
And I drank it out of the air.
(Fair is the serpent-cup,
But the cup of God more fair.)
The wine of God came down
That makes no drinker to weep.
And I went back to battle again
Leaving the singer asleep.
Scheme | X XABAXCXC BDEDXFEF GHXHXIXIXGXGXJXJXXXX KHXHKLXL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10110010101001 001101011 1010110011 0110111 010010011 01111101 011111 110101 110111 1111101 11111001 00100101 00101011 101101 111011001 01111001 01001011 111111 110101 111010 011011 10110111 100101 01111101 0110101 0110111 0110111 1110111 1001001 1100111 0100101 0110111 00101101 1100101 1111001 1110101 01101010 1011111 01111101 110101 1011111 011111 1111011 011111001 1001001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,438 |
Words | 277 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 8, 8, 20, 8 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 220 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:23 min read
- 58 Views
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"On Reading Omar Khayyam" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37316/on-reading-omar-khayyam>.
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