Analysis of Lovely White Flowers
Constantine P. Cavafy 1863 (Alexandria) – 1933 (Alexandria)
He went inside the cafe where they used to sit together.
It was here, three months ago, that his friend told him:
'We're completely broke -so hard up, the two of us,
that we're stuck with the cheapest places.
I can't go around with you any more -it's no use hiding the fact.
I've got to tell you, somebody else is after me.'
The 'somebody else' had promised him two suits, some silk handkerchiefs.
He himself, to get his friend back,
went through hell rounding up twenty pounds.
His friend came back to him for the twenty pounds-
but along with that, for their old intimacy,
their old love, for the deep feeling between them.
The 'somebody else' was a liar, a real bum:
he'd ordered only one suit for his friend,
and that under pressure, after much begging.
But now he doesn't want the suits any longer,
he doesn't want the silk handkerchiefs at all,
or twenty pounds, or twenty piastres even.
Sunday they buried him, at ten in the morning.
Sunday they buried him, almost a week ago.
He laid flowers on his cheap coffin,
lovely white flowers, very much in keeping
with his beauty, his twenty-two years.
When he went to the cafe that evening
he happened to have some vital business there
to that same cafe where they used to go together,
it was a knife in his heart,
that dead cafe where they used to go together.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIIFJKLMANOMPOMQMRASA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110100111111010 111110111111 101011110111 111101010 11101111011111001 111111011101 010111011111100 10111111 111101101 11111110101 101111111000 11110110011 01011010011 1101011111 01101010110 111101011010 11010110011 1101110110 11101110010 1110110101 111011110 10110101010 111011011 1111001110 11011110101 1110111111010 1101011 110111111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,293 |
Words | 245 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,014 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 242 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 07, 2023
- 1:15 min read
- 151 Views
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"Lovely White Flowers" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7191/lovely-white-flowers>.
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