Analysis of In the Wood
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
Blurred by a lilac heat, the meadows:
in the wood, cathedral shadows swirled.
What on earth was left for them to kiss? So
like wax, soft in the fingers, theirs, the world.
There’s a dream – you do not sleep, you only
dream you long for sleep: someone’s dozing,
two black suns are beating under eyelids,
burning eyelashes, while he’s slumbering.
Sunbeams play. Iridescent beetles flow by,
dragon-flies’ glass skims over his cheek.
With tiny scintillations, the wood’s alive,
like those the clockmakers’ tweezers seek.
It seems he slept to the tick of figures,
while in acid, amber ether, over his head,
the hands of a carefully tested clock quiver,
regulated precisely by tremors of heat.
They calibrate, they shake the pines,
scatter the shadow, exhaust and pierce
the darkness of timber raised up high,
in the day’s fatigue, on the blue clock-face.
It seems a primal happiness was setting,
it seems the wood was sunk in sunlit dream.
Happy folk don’t spend time clock-watching,
but this pair were only sleeping, it seems.
Scheme | XAXA XBXB CDXD XXXX XXCX BXBX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (50%) |
Metre | 1101101 00101011 1111111111 1110010101 1011111110 11111110 111110101 101011100 110101011 101111011 11010101 1101101 1111101110 101010101011 011010010110 10001011011 1101101 10010101 010110111 0010110111 11010100110 110111011 101111110 1110101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,025 |
Words | 175 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
Font size:
Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 07, 2023
- 52 sec read
- 91 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"In the Wood" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4505/in-the-wood>.
Discuss this Boris Pasternak poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In