Analysis of For
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)
A REMOTE sky, prolonged to the sea's brim:
One rock-point standing buffeted alone,
Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,
Hell-birth of geomaunt and teraphim:
A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,
Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there,
Leaning into the hollow with loose hair
And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.
The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt:
Under his lord the griffin-horse ramps blind
With rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stem
Thrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind,
That evil length of body chafes at fault.
She does not hear nor see—she knows of them.
CLENCH thine eyes now,—'tis the last instant, girl:
Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take
One breath for all: thy life is keen awake,—
Thou mayst not swoon. Was that the scattered whirl
Of its foam drenched thee?—or the waves that curl
And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?
Or was it his the champion's blood to flake
Thy flesh?—or thine own blood's anointing, girl?
Now, silence: for the sea's is such a sound
As irks not silence; and except the sea,
All now is still. Now the dead thing doth cease
To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and she,
Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,
Again a woman in her nakedness.
Scheme | ABBAACCADEFEDF GHHGGHHGIJXJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0011011011 111100101 1111101101 111101 0100110101 1101010101 1001010111 011101111 0111001101 1011010111 1101010111 1001011101 1101110111 1111111111 1111101101 1011011101 1111111101 1111110101 1111110111 0111011101 11110100111 11111111 1101011101 1111000101 1111101111 1101111001 1101110111 01010001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,289 |
Words | 238 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 14 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 490 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 115 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 103 Views
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"For" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7531/for>.
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