Analysis of The Old Men In The Leaf Smoke
Archibald MacLeish 1892 (Glencoe) – 1982 (Boston)
The old men rake the yards for winter
Burning the autumn-fallen leaves.
They have no lives, the one or the other.
The leaves are dead, the old men live
Only a little, light as a leaf,
Left to themselves of all their loves:
Light in the head most often too.
Raking the leaves, raking the lives,
Raking life and leaf together,
The old men smell of burning leaves
But which is which they wonder - whether
Anyone tells the leaves and loves -
Anyone left, that is, who lives.
| Scheme | ABACDEFGABAEG |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 011101110 10010101 1111011010 01110111 100101101 11011111 10011101 10011001 10101010 01111101 111111010 1010101 1011111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 466 |
| Words | 91 |
| Sentences | 5 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 13 |
| Lines Amount | 13 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
| Words per line (avg) | 7 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 365 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 89 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 27 sec read
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"The Old Men In The Leaf Smoke" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3765/the-old-men-in-the-leaf-smoke>.
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