Analysis of Tamerlane
Victor James Daley 1858 – 1905
LO, upon the carpet, where
Throned upon a heap of slain
Blue-eyed dolls of beauty rare
(Ah, they pleaded all in vain!)
Sits the Infant Tamerlane!
Broken toys upon the floor
Scattered lie—a ruined rout.
Thus from all things evermore
Are—the fact is past a doubt—
Hidden virtues hammered out.
Poet’s page, or statesman’s bust,
Nothing comes to him amiss;
Everything he clutches must—
’Tis his simple dream of bliss!—
Suffer his analysis.
O my little Tamerlane,
Infantile Iconoclast,
Is your small barbaric brain
Not o’erawed by the amassed
Wit and Wisdom of the Past?
Type are you of that which springs
Ever forth when comes the need,
Overthrowing thrones and kings,
Faithless altar, sapless creed;
Sowing fresh and living seed.
On the worn-out Roman realm,
In whose purple gnawed the moth,
Thus its pride to overwhelm,
And its state to carve like cloth,
Swept the fierce, long-sworded Goth.
Age preserves with doting care
Things from which life long has fled,
Shrieks to see Youth touch a hair
On the mouldiest mummy-head—
So Egyptians kept their dead.
Youth comes by with head high-reared,
Stares in scorn at these august
Effigies by age revered—
Gilded shapes of Greed and Lust—
Shakes them into rags and dust.
Little Vandal, smash away!
Riot while your blood is hot!—
If into the world each day
Such as you are entered not,
It would perish of dry-rot.
Scheme | ABABBCDCDD EFEFX BGBGG HIHII JKJKX ALALL MEMEE NONOO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1010101 1010111 1111101 1110101 10101 1010101 1010101 111110 1011101 1010101 101111 1011101 101101 1110111 1010100 11101 10010 1110101 111001 1010101 1111111 1011101 100101 11011 1010101 1011101 0110101 111101 0111111 101111 1011101 1111111 1111101 101101 1010111 1111111 1011110 11101 1011101 1101101 1010101 1011111 1010111 1111101 1110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,432 |
Words | 237 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:11 min read
- 39 Views
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"Tamerlane" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/37525/tamerlane>.
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