Analysis of Sweeney among the Nightingales
T. S. Eliot 1888 (St. Louis, Missouri, United States) – 1965 (Kensington)
Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate.
Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees
Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;
The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;
The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
Scheme | ABXB XCXC XADA XEFE GAXX GHXH DIXI XJFJ XKXK XLXL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (90%) Etheree (28%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 110111 10111111 01010111 101101 01010101 110010101 10010101 0101011 10010001 11010101 01000101 111111 1010101 100101 0100101 11010101 01010101 11010101 01010100 0101011 0101001 101001 10111 110111001 10010001 10111101 1011101 01010101 101001 11010100 1011 010101 0111001 10010101 011101 01010101 01010101 101101 01110101 110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,268 |
Words | 216 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 105 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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"Sweeney among the Nightingales" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/54137/sweeney-among-the-nightingales>.
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