Analysis of The Tower

Conrad Potter Aiken 1889 (Savannah, Georgia) – 1973 (Savannah, Georgia)



One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.

One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam.

Looking down from a window high in a wall
He sees us all;
Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,
Searching the sky, and going our ways again,
Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .
There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees
What we are blind to,-we who mass and crowd
From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.

The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,
Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;
Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.
The yellow lamps wink one by one again.
The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.


Scheme ABABCCXC DDEXE FFGHIIJJ XKGHK
Poetic Form
Metre 11111100010 111101 010010101010 101101101 111101110010 0100111101 1001011000110 010101101 1111110101 11010100111 011101101 01010100111 110111 10110101001 1111 101010100101 100101010101 1001101001 10011101101 1111111101 111100100101 0111001010110 100110100111 1110111011 0101111101 0101100100101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,107
Words 211
Sentences 11
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 5, 8, 5
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 219
Words per stanza (avg) 53
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:03 min read
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Conrad Potter Aiken

Conrad Potter Aiken was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author born in Savannah Georgia whose work includes poetry short stories novels and an autobiography more…

All Conrad Potter Aiken poems | Conrad Potter Aiken Books

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