Analysis of The Old Flame
Robert Lowell 1917 (Boston) – 1977 (New York City)
My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill,
Now a red ear of Indian maize
was splashed on the door.
Old Glory with thirteen stripes
hung on a pole. The clapboard
was old-red schoolhouse red.
Inside, a new landlord,
a new wife, a new broom!
Atlantic seaboard antique shop
pewter and plunder
shone in each room.
A new frontier!
No running next door
now to phone the sheriff
for his taxi to Bath
and the State Liquor Store!
No one saw your ghostly
imaginary lover
stare through the window
and tighten
the scarf at his throat.
Health to the new people,
health to their flag, to their old
restored house on the hill!
Everything had been swept bare,
furnished, garnished and aired.
Everything's changed for the best,
how quivering and fierce we were,
there snowbound together,
simmering like wasps
in our tent of books!
Poor ghost, old love, speak
with your old voice
of flaming insight
that kept us awake all night.
In one bed and apart,
we heard the plow
groaning up hill,
a red light, then a blue,
as it tossed off the snow
to the side of the road.
Scheme | XXXAA XBXCX CDXED XBXXB XEFXX XXAXX XEEXX XXGGX XAXFX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (24%) |
Metre | 11111 01010111 11011011 110101111 11111 101111001 11101 1101111 110101 11111 01011 011011 0101011 10010 1011 0101 11011 111010 111011 001101 111110 010010 11010 010 01111 110110 1111111 011101 101111 101001 101101 11000110 11010 10011 010111 11111 1111 1101 1110111 011001 1101 1011 011101 111101 101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,122 |
Words | 221 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 99 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 161 Views
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"The Old Flame" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56526/the-old-flame>.
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