Analysis of The Old Pole Star
Edith Wharton 1862 (New York City) – 1937 (Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt)
BEFORE the clepsydra had bound the days
Man tethered Change to his fixed star, and said:
'The elder races, that long since are dead,
Marched by that light; it swerves not from its base
Though all the worlds about it wax and fade.'
When Egypt saw it, fast in reeling spheres,
Her Pyramids shaft-centred on its ray
She reared and said: 'Long as this star holds sway
In uninvaded ether, shall the years
Revere my monuments - ' and went her way.
The Pyramids abide; but through the shaft
That held the polar pivot, eye to eye,
Look now - blank nothingness! As though Change laughed
At man's presumption and his puny craft,
The star has slipped its leash and roams the sky.
Yet could the immemorial piles be swung
A skyey hair's breadth from their rooted base,
Back to the central anchorage of space,
Ah, then again, as when the race was young,
Should they behold the beacon of the race!
Of old men said: 'The Truth is there: we rear
Our faith full-centred on it. It was known
Thus of the elders who foreran us here,
Mapped out its circuit in the shifting sphere,
And found it, 'mid mutation, fixed alone.'
Change laughs again, again the sky is cold,
And down that fissure now no star-beam glides.
Yet they whose sweep of vision grows not old
Still at the central point of space behold
Another pole-star: for the Truth abides.
Scheme | XAABX CDDCD EFEEF GBBGB HIXHI JKJJK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 01011101 1101111101 0101011111 1111111111 1101011101 1101110101 010011111 1101111111 0110101 0111000101 0100011101 1101010111 1111001111 1101001101 0111110101 1100100111 011111101 1101010011 1101110111 1101010101 1111011111 1011111111 110101111 1111000101 0111010101 1101010111 0111011111 1111110111 1101011101 0101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,300 |
Words | 246 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 172 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:13 min read
- 118 Views
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"The Old Pole Star" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9100/the-old-pole-star>.
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