Analysis of Roman Outposts
Derek Walcott 1930 (Castries) – 2017 (Cap Estate)
for Pat Strachan
The thought-resembling moonlight at a cloud’s edge
spreads like the poetry of some Roman outpost
to every corner of the Silver Age.
The moon, capitol of that white empire, is lost
in the black mass. Now, the hot core is Washington,
where once it was Whitehall. Her light burns
all night in office like Cato’s ghost,
a concentration ringed with turbulence.
The wet dawn smells of seaweed. On this seawall
where there was a pier once, the concrete cracks
have multiplied like frontiers on a map
of Roman Europe. The same tides rise and fall,
froth, the moon’s lantern hung in the same place.
On the sea road skirting the old Navy base,
the archaeologist, with his backpack, crouching
to collect cowries, startles the carbon skeleton
impressed on earth like the gigantic fern
of Caterpillar tracks. By Roman roads
along the sea grapes, their leaves the size
of armor-plates, the stripped hangars rust
where once the bombers left for target practice;
breakers bring rumors of the nuclear fleet
to shells the washed-out blue of pirates’ eyes
Scheme | A XBXXAXBXCXXCDDXAXXEXXXE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110 01010011011 11010011101 11001010101 0110011110011 001110111100 11111011 11010111 001011100 011111111 1110110011 110101101 11010011101 1011010011 10111001101 0010011110 1011010010100 0111100101 110011101 010111101 110101101 11010111010 10110101001 1101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,038 |
Words | 179 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 23 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 423 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 90 |
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"Roman Outposts" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/62790/roman-outposts>.
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