Analysis of Malade
David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)
The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window
The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane,
As a little wind comes in.
The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd
Scooped out and dry, where a spider,
Folded in its legs as in a bed,
Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see but twilight and walls.
And if the day outside were mine! What is the day
But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths hanging
Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly from them
Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over
The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the floor of the cave!
I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.
But somewhere birds, beside a lake of light, spread wings
Larger than the largest fans, and rise in a stream upwards
And upwards on the sunlight that rains invisible,
So that the birds are like one wafted feather,
Small and ecstatic suspended over a vast spread country.
Scheme | XXXXAXB XXXAXB XXXAX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011101101111010 0101011101001 1010110 011010110101 11011010 100111001 1101101110111101 010111011101 101111110110 11010011101011 100111010010 0101110110101101 111011011 11101011111 10101010100110 010101110100 11011111010 100100101001110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 950 |
Words | 180 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 6, 5 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 41 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 245 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 59 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 72 Views
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"Malade" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7856/malade>.
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