Analysis of On a fateful day, an unlucky time
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
On a fateful day, an unlucky time,
Unannounced, it may happen thus:
Stifling, blacker still than a monastery
Utter madness descends on us.
Bitter frost. The night, as a decency,
Is observing the icy cold.
In an armchair, the ghost mumbles on and on,
Still the same, in his winter coat.
And the branch outside, and the parquet floor,
And his cheek, and the poker's shade-
All are shot with repentance and sleepiness
Of the blizzard that raved night and day.
Now the night is calm. Bright and frosty night.
Like a puppy suckling, still blind,
With the whole of their darkness-the palisade
Drinks the sparkle of stars through the pines.
Seems-it drips from them. Seems they're glimmering.
Seems-the night is brimming with wax
And the pad of one fir warms another pad
And one hollow traces the next.
Seems-this stillness, this height's an elegiac wave,
A concern of a soul for a mind,
The expectancy after an anxious 'respond'!
Or an echo of different kind.
Seems it's dumb, this enquiring of needles and trees.
And the height is too deaf or too blue,
And the shine on the frozen swerve of the road's
A reply to that pleading 'Helloooo…'
Bitter frost. The night, as a decency,
Is observing the icy cold.
In his armchair the ghost mumbles endlessly,
Still the same, in his winter coat-
Oh-his lips-he is squeezing them horribly!
Face in hands-shaking-ready to choke!
Whirls of clues for the gifted biographer
In this pattern, as dead as chalk.
Scheme | xaba BCxD xeax xfex xxxx xfxf xgxg BCbD bxxx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (33%) |
Metre | 1010110101 0111101 1010110100 10100111 1010110100 10100101 0110110101 10101101 0011100011 0110011 11110100100 101011101 1011110101 10101011 1011110001 101011101 1111111100 10111011 00111110101 01101001 111011111 001101101 001001011001 111011001 1111111001 001111111 00110101101 00111101 1010110100 10100101 0110110100 10101101 11111101100 101101011 11110100100 01101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,413 |
Words | 253 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 125 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 124 Views
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"On a fateful day, an unlucky time" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4523/on-a-fateful-day%2C-an-unlucky-time>.
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