Analysis of This Compost
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest;
I withdraw from the still woods I loved;
I will not go now on the pastures to walk;
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea;
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew
me.
O how can it be that the ground does not sicken?
How can you be alive, you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards,
grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? 10
Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations;
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day--or perhaps I am deceiv'd;
I will run a furrow with my plough--I will press my spade through the
sod, and turn it up underneath;
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person--Yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noislessly through the mould in the garden, 20
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its
graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on
their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear--the calf is dropt from the cow, the
colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green
leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk--the lilacs bloom in the
door-yards;
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata
of sour dead. 30
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which
is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its
tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever.
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard--that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, 40
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a
catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks, its prodigal, annual, sumptuous
crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from
them at last.
Scheme | XXXABA CXXXBD XEFXGXF XXHCXIJXAXXXGKXXGXGD ALXAJXXXXXAXAHGH XELIKLXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101011111110 101101111 11111101011 11110111101111001 11111110111101101 1 111111011110 1111011111 1111011111110 1 1110100010110011 111001001100101101 1110111100 1100101110010 111111011001 11111011011111011101 1110101111111110 1011101 111110111011 011100111 011001111110110101 011110010 01111010010 010011010110 010110010101010 0010101011110111 1 0111001100101 0111010010101111 11 0111011011 01111000101111010 1101 11110110010111 1 1111100101101100 11 010111000010011110 1101 1100 1011101010 111111010111011 11100101 11111011111101011011 1 111101011010110100 0101 11110100010 1011101111 110111010 10110101001010101 1011011111101 1110110111111001 110010011110111110 1001 111101011111010 11111111010 111001011101110 110110 1111001111011 101110101110010010 1 111010100110011101 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 3,307 |
Words | 539 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 7, 20, 16, 9 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 394 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 101 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 2:43 min read
- 188 Views
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"This Compost" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38192/this-compost>.
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