Analysis of The Yellow Gas
Christopher John Brennan 1870 (Haymarket, New South Wales) – 1932 (Lewisham, New South Wales)
The yellow gas is fired from street to street
past rows of heartless homes and hearths unlit,
dead churches, and the unending pavement beat
by crowds - say rather, haggard shades that flit
round nightly haunts of their delusive dream,
where'er our paradisal instinct starves: -
till on the utmost post, its sinuous gleam
crawls in the oily water of the wharves;
where Homer's sea loses his keen breath, hemm'd
what place rebellious piles were driven down -
the priestlike waters to this task condemn'd
to wash the roots of the inhuman town! -
where fat and strange-eyed fish that never saw
the outer deep, broad halls of sapphire light,
glut in the city's draught each nameless maw:
- and there, wide-eyed unto the soulless night,
methinks a drown'd maid's face might fitly show
what we have slain, a life that had been free,
clean, large, nor thus tormented - even so
as are the skies, the salt winds and the sea.
Ay, we had saved our days and kept them whole,
to whom no part in our old joy remains,
had felt those bright winds sweeping thro' our soul
and all the keen sea tumbling in our veins,
had thrill'd to harps of sunrise, when the height
whitens, and dawn dissolves in virgin tears,
or caught, across the hush'd ambrosial night,
the choral music of the swinging spheres,
or drunk the silence if nought else - But no!
and from each rotting soul distill in dreams
a poison, o'er the old earth creeping slow,
that kills the flowers and curdles the live streams,
that taints the fresh breath of re-risen day
and reeks across the pale bewildered moon:
- shall we be cleans'd and how? I only pray,
red flame or deluge, may that end be soon!
Scheme | AAAX BCBC DEDE CFXF GXCC HCHC FCFC GCGC IJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (78%) |
Metre | 01011101111 111101011 11000010101 1111010111 11011111 10101101 110111101 1001010101 1101101111 1101010101 011011101 1101100101 1101111101 01011111001 1001011101 0111100101 10111111 1111011111 111110101 1101011001 11111010111 11110101101 11111101101 010111000101 111111101 101010101 1101010101 0101010101 1101011111 0111010101 01010011101 1101001011 1101111101 0101010101 1111011101 1111011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,618 |
Words | 300 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 143 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 37 Views
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