Analysis of Sappho
Charles Kingsley 1819 – 1875
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
Above her glared the noon; beneath, the sea.
Upon the white horizon Atho's peak
Weltered in burning haze; all airs were dead;
The cicale slept among the tamarisk's hair;
The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below
The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun;
The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings;
The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge,
And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest;
And Mother Earth watched by him as he slept,
And hushed her myriad children for a while.
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear,
But left her tossing still; for night and day
A mighty hunger yearned within her heart,
Till all her veins ran fever; and her cheek,
Her long thin hands, and ivory-channelled feet,
Were wasted with the wasting of her soul.
Then peevishly she flung her on her face,
And hid her eyeballs from the blinding glare,
And fingered at the grass, and tried to cool
Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward:
And then she raised her head, and upward cast
Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light
Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair,
As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks
Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon.
Beside her lay her lyre. She snatched the shell,
And waked wild music from its silver strings;
Then tossed it sadly by.-'Ah, hush!' she cries;
'Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine!
Why mock my discords with thine harmonies?
Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine,
Only to echo back in every tone
The moods of nobler natures than thine own.'
Scheme | AbcdefghijklAmnocpqrestuvewxyhz1 2 1 3 3 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101010101 0101010101 010101011 101011101 01101011 0111010101 0101110001 0101111101 01011100101 0101111111 0101111111 01010010101 1101010101 0111111111 1101011101 0101010101 1101110001 0111010011 0101010101 11110101 010110101 0101010111 0111010111 0111010101 1111011101 1101111111 1111010101 111010101 0101011101 0111011101 1111011111 111010001 111111100 1010100111 10110101001 0111010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,595 |
Words | 295 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 36 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,255 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 286 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:28 min read
- 126 Views
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"Sappho" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5275/sappho>.
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