Analysis of Craft
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
When, having finished, I shall move my armchair,
The page will gasp, awakened from the strain.
Delirious, she is half asleep at present,
Obedient to suspense and to the rain.
The heaviness of burnt-out ships has numbed her,
Prostrated, weighted down her senseless form;
You cannot dupe this one by false pretences-
It is the poet who will keep her warm.
I told her at an hour (its secret shudder
Vouchsafed by fancy) when the winter will
Light up green screeching ice, fed up with waiting
Behind an office worker's window sill,
And clocks in banks and other public places,
While drinking in the snow and outside's dark,
Will suddenly jump up and strike-their faces
Crossed by the clockhands at the 'seven' mark-
At such a deep, at such a fateful hour,
I made the page wake up and take her chance,
To put on hood and scarf, and venture out to
Descendants, strangers, shaking off her trance.
Scheme | XAXA BCDC BEXE DFDF BDXD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1101011111 0111010101 010011101110 01001010101 011111110 11010101 110111111 1101011101 110111011010 111010101 11110111110 0111010101 01010101010 110001011 11001101110 110110101 11011101010 1101110101 11110101011 0101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 878 |
Words | 160 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 13, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 115 Views
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"Craft" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4476/craft>.
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