Analysis of Change
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
I used to glorify the poor,
Not simply lofty views expressing:
Their lives alone, I felt, were true,
Devoid of pomp and window-dressing.
No stranger to the manor house,
Its finery and lordly tenor,
I was a friend of down-and-outs,
And shunned the idly sponging manner.
For choosing friendship in the ranks
Of working people, though no rebel,
I had the honour to be stamped
As also one among the rabble.
The state of basements, unadorned,
Of attics with no frills or curtains
Was tangible without pretence
And full of substance, weighty, certain.
And I went bad when rot defaced
Our time, and life became infested,
When grief was censured as disgrace
And all played optimists and yes-men.
My faith in those who seemed my friends
Was broken and our ties were sundered.
I, too, lost Man, the Human, since
He had been lost by all and sundry.
Scheme | XAXA BCXC XDED XXBX XXXX XEXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (50%) |
Metre | 1111001 110101010 11011101 011101010 11010101 11000110 11011101 01010110 11010001 110101110 1101111 110101010 0111001 110111110 1100011 011101010 01111101 1010101010 11110101 011100011 11011111 110010101 11110101 111111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 822 |
Words | 150 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 110 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 09, 2023
- 45 sec read
- 105 Views
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"Change" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4474/change>.
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