Analysis of Definition Of The Frontiers
Archibald MacLeish 1892 (Glencoe) – 1982 (Boston)
First there is the wind but not like the familiar wind but long and without lapses or falling away or surges of air as is usual but rather like the persistent pressure of a river or a running tide.
This wind is from the other side and has an odor unlike the odor of the winds with us but like time if time had odor and were cold and carried a bitter and sharp taste like rust on the taste of snow or the fragrance of thunder.
When the air has this taste of time the frontiers are not far from us.
Then too there are the animals. There are always animals under the small trees. They belong neither to our side nor to theirs but are wild and because they are animals of such kind that wildness is unfamiliar in them as the horse for example or the goat and often sheep and dogs and like creatures their wandering there is strange and even terrifying signaling as it does the violation of custom and the subversion of order.
There are also the unnatural lovers the distortion of images the penetration of mirrors and the inarticulate meanings of the dreams. The dreams are in turmoil like a squall of birds.
Finally there is the evasion of those with whom we have come. It is at the frontiers that the companions desert us—that the girl returns to the old country
that we are alone.
Scheme | X A X A X X X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111011110010111001101100111011111001101001010101010101 111101010111001010101111111111000101001001111101111010110 1011111100111111 1111010011110010011101101101111111001111001111101010011011010101010101011011001110101001001110001011000010110 111000100100010110000101100000100101010110110111 1001100101111111111001100101011010110110 11101 |
Characters | 1,289 |
Words | 245 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 7 |
Letters per line (avg) | 147 |
Words per line (avg) | 35 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 147 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 35 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:13 min read
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